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College Demands RIAA Pay Up For Wasting Its Time
An anonymous reader writes "We've already seen the University of Wisconsin tell the RIAA to go away, but the University of Nebaska has gone one step further: it's asking the RIAA to pay up for wasting its time with the silly demand to push students into paying up. The spokesperson for the University also notes that since they constantly rotate IP addresses and have no need to hang onto that information for very long, they simply cannot help the RIAA. They have no clue who was attached to which IP address at the time the RIAA is complaining about."
I think that we are seeing that people are finally getting fed up with the RIAA. Their tactics are quasi-illegal, and their manners are boorish. Maybe 2007 is the year that people finally get wise and stand up to the RIAA. A few losses in court, which IMHO are pretty much a slam dunk, and I think we will see the RIAA have to stand down this attack on music consumers.
What has disappointed me was the fact that no one has stood up to them before to finally beat them in court. There has to be a first case and once there is, it will set the precedent.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
I don't think "as hard" is appropriate esp since I believe that the RIAA, from what I have seen, is abusing the US legal and court system and their political and monetary power (yes monetary power CAN be abused).
While I don't know if the RIAA has done anything in particular illegal (though I am fairly sure they have somewhere along the line) I still see the trends in their lawsuits and tactics as abusive and deserving of a civil (if that really counts between two very large organizations neither of which are really citizens) hearing.
Here's the letter I wrote to the president of UNL, the chancellor, each of the regents, and the CIO (Mr. Weir):
I got several replies of agreement, and I think that the school will be holding its ground.
GO HUSKERS!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
UNL's network is open on the student side. You can run servers, game servers, web cams, whatever the hell you want. The thing is though, if you get caught, and they can prove who you are, they toss your sorry butt to the wolves. The student side is much more open the the restricted faculty/staff/admin side. A student plugging their machine into that side is likely to get caught pretty quickly.
I'm also pretty sure that the IP is kept longer then they admit. I have friends attending UNL and they have had the same IP all year. It did not even change when they went home for x-mas break. I think they have the ability to help the RIAA if they want, but with all the bad press, and Nebraska's need for recruiting out-of-state students, this is the perfect publicity stunt. "Come to Nebraska and leech without fear of being turned in".
Overall, I think they are no more a haven for hackers than any other large University. Most seem to have the attitude of "do what you want, but don't get caught".
A lot must have changed in the last ten years. It looked to me that [machine named after a Peanuts character](*) kept track of DHCP leases for years, recording who got what IP and what their machine's MAC address was. I was once tasked to audit the information for two semesters to update the DHCP server for the next year. Students who were caught trying to get an unassigned static IP got their MAC addresses banned. They've caught students buying new NICs to get new, unbanned MAC addresses to get back on the network before.
Meanwhile, the assignment of static IPs by DHCP must have also gone by the wayside, as when I was in the "residence halls" I was disturbed to discover that the IP addresses also had domain names identifying residence hall and room number and no option to have that information be removed.
I guess that with the addition of wireless access on campus, there was suddenly far more information than they could handle and felt there was no longer any point in tracking it beyond, what are they saying, 31 days?
(*) I'm pretty sure I know which machine, but there's no point in saying it here as it is inaccessible from off campus. I was there when they disallowed pings and traceroutes from the outside for reasons of network security, and that still appears to be the case. There's more than one Peanuts-named machine on campus.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The RIAA has, until fairly recently, gotten pretty much a free ride for two reasons:
1. They've been suing "little people" who frequently cannot even afford a lawyer and for whom even ONE loss in court would wipe them out financially.
2. A court system in which computer-clueless judges have taken the RIAA's word that their "evidence" is valid and who have forgotten or overlooked the "innocent until PROVEN guilty" which is the basis of our entire legal system.
Now they're starting to wade in against people and institutions who DO have lawyers and aren't afraid to use them and who CAN carry on the "protracted struggle" the modern over-lawyered legal system demands. In the meantime, judges are getting more educated about what computers can and can't do, and are being reminded of the presumption of innocence.
So instead of "show me the money", of which the RIAA has plenty, they're about to hear "show me the evidence", of which they have little or none.
Game, set, and match!
I worked at UNL for a few years, and this strikes me as ironic.
:p
Until somtime in the first half of the decade, UNL used to give everyone real static IP addresses. This let students easily host their own servers, including one server that, rumor had it, had one of the biggest collections of pirated music on the Internet - the server was pre-Napster and survived and thrived post-Napster. (Rumor said it was run by a woman who just loved music and liked to listen to everything that was uploaded... I'm not sure if she went to class much because they said she was in her 6th year or so when I was there.)
This was before the RIAA was very active online, and to my understanding was fairly unaware of servers like this. When UNL went to DHCP everywhere, one of the effects was to make it harder to run servers like that. So, it's funny that a move that a few years ago was percieved as hurting music piracy is now seen as enabling it. (The move to DHCP wasn't done for political reasons, but the students didn't see it that way.)
PS. I never visited the server and don't know who ran it, so don't bother subpoenaing me, RIAA.
Seriously. You know honestly, the RIAA reminds me of the people fighting for prohibition. In the end it's going to lose because everyone is still drinking the booze (stealing the music) and all the legal action in the world isn't going to stop it. So you might as well just come to the conclusion that it's going to happen. I personally say let's make it legal!
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
(Please note: IANAL...)
Innocent until proven guilty only applies to the Criminal Justice System.
Civil law operates under the preponderance of evidence standard- and unless you invalidate the evidence the other
side is presenting, if they've enough of it, you'll lose the case. That's how the RIAA is getting these things
through- shock and awe. And pretty much every one of the cases so far that have actually gone to court have been
a loss for the RIAA.
I wish that one of the courts would twig onto the fact that the labels and RIAA are very probably acting
as a vexatious litigant and punish them accordingly.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas