Harvard Law Professor Urges University to Fight RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Distinguished Harvard University Law School Professor Charles Nesson has called upon Harvard University to fight back against the RIAA and stand up for its students, writing 'Seeking to outsource its enforcement costs, the RIAA asks universities to point fingers at their students, to filter their Internet access, and to pass along notices of claimed copyright infringement. But these responses distort the University's educational mission. ...[W]e should be assisting our students both by explaining the law and by resisting the subpoenas that the RIAA serves upon us. We should be deploying our clinical legal student training programs to defend our targeted students.'"

Comments

Re:Authority

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

From my experience litigating against the RIAA, it has no interest in the rule of law whatsoever; its goal is to make money and monopolize as much of the digital music space as it can.

1. Although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure encourage the making of all motions on notice, the RIAA does everything it can ex parte. The John Doe proceedings and motion for discovery are initiated without notice to anyone, even though it would be a simple matter to furnish the university, college, or ISP with copies of the motion and other papers, which could in turn be disseminated to the "John Does" to enable them to consult with counsel and take action if so advised.

2. The RIAA joins unrelated John Does, also in total contravention of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

3. In 2004 the federal district court in Austin, Texas, enjoined the RIAA to cease and desist from that practice. The RIAA has been in contempt of that order ever since, merely taking care to avoid litigating in Austin, Texas.

4. The RIAA conducts a sham investigation which, at best, identifies a person who paid for an internet access account... and then turns around and sues that person without any information that that individual is actually liable for copyright infringement.

5. The RIAA has invented a claim for "Making available" even though there is no legal authority.

6. The RIAA has invented a concept of an "online media digital music distributor", and uses it to tarnish people who've never engaged in file sharing in their life.

7. The RIAA never honors its pretrial discovery obligations, taking advantage of the fact that most defendants do not have the resources to engage in a constant stream of motion practice in order to get even the most rudimentary discovery.

8. It makes frivolous assertions of "privilege" and "confidentiality" solely to make litigation more expensive for defendants in other cases.

9. The RIAA will disclose, and distort the contents of, confidential settlement discussions.

I could go on and on. But to anyone who thinks the RIAA is trying to enforce copyright law.... think again.

The key, for me, is that our system of law is an adversarial system. For there to be fair outcomes there needs to be a fight of equals, a level playing field. The RIAA has embarked on a program of using colossal wealth to prey on defenseless victims, so that it can rewrite copyright law in a way that will maximize the recording industry's wealth. And it tramples on their civil rights in the process. ACLU, Public Citizen, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Amerian Association of Law Libraries. the US Internet Industry Association, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, and others have submitted amicus curiae briefs pointing these things out.

The article written by Prof. Nesson and Ms. Seltzer is a landmark.

The key message for the university, in my view, is this: "we should be assisting our students both by explaining the law and by resisting the subpoenas that the RIAA serves upon us. We should be deploying our clinical legal student training programs to defend our targeted students."

Harvard should make sure that the due process rights of its students are protected.

Re:About Time

[Dun Malg]

Imagine, Harvard, a non-accredited school. There's not a snowball's chance in hell of that. You don't seem to understand how accreditation works, particularly with regard to highly prestigious schools. It's essentially a "Mexican standoff". Accreditation is not done by any state entity. It's not like a health department rating for a restaurant, but more like ratings by food critics. There exist many accreditation associations, some better than others. Institutions of higher education are judged on whether they're accredited by an association that's considered reputable. But by the same token, accreditation associations are judged by which schools they list as "accredited". Any accreditation association idiotic enough to boot fucking HARVARD over a non-educational issue is just asking to be laughed down to the bottom of the list, where the faux-associations that accredit diploma mills live.