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University of Washington Will Aid RIAA

Posted by kdawson on from the in-loco-prosecutor dept.

Several readers let us know that the University of Washington has announced that it will pass on RIAA settlement offer letters to students identified, presumably by IP address, as suspected file sharers. "The notices say offending students have 20 days to settle with the association by paying it about $3,000 to $5,000 or be taken to court without possibility of a settlement." The Vice Provost for Student Life sent an email to all students saying, "The University has been notified by the RIAA that we will be receiving a number of these early settlement letters. After careful consideration, we have decided to forward the letters to the alleged copyright violators."

3 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. I still remember the... by stelmack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...free speech, protect our rights and the war protests at the UW. Ii sort of saddens me to see the management, who must have been in those protests, now lookig for the easy way out. How times have changed.

    1. Re:I still remember the... by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      >>free speech

      Not anonymous speech. IF you say something, be prepared to stand up and back it up. Just because you *can* say something does not mean you can say something and will never be found. Just as you have a right to say whatever you want about me, I have the right to find out who you are and confront you about it.

      >>protect our rights

      Like the rights of the copyright holders? Who protects their rights? Oh yeah, the RIAA does. You do not have the right to distribute copyrighted works without permission of the copyright holder. If you are using bittorrent to download copyrighted music, then you are, at the same time, uploading that same music.

      >>war protests

      I really don't see how that factors in. I guess if you want to link the military-industrial complex and the Illuminati, then maybe it makes sense.

      >>Ii [sic] sort of saddens me to see the management, who must have been in those protests

      The things they protested were thousands of times worse. Whites openly killed blacks. The government openly forced young men into military service. Women had few, if any, rights. Homosexuals were harshly persecuted.

      We have it pretty good today. It'd be better of people voted, but I digress.

      >>now lookig [sic] for the easy way out

      How is having you fight your own battle the "easy way out"? A third party comes forward and advises that IP 10.10.10.200 was downloading "Hit me baby one more time" from IP 20.20.20.200 at 11:30 GMT on 1 June 2007. They are requesting the user's contact info for that IP lease at that time.

      That's all.

      If you want to argue about whether or not you were downloading a "real" copy of a copyrighted song, then you still get to do it in court.

      If you want to argue about whether or not you were also uploading that same copyrighted song, then you still get to do it in court.

      If you want to argue about whether or not you were the actual owner of that IP at that time, then you still get to do it in court.

      If you want to argue about whether or not someone behind a NAT you run was downloading, then you still get to do it in court.

      If you want to argue about whether or not the evidence was collected properly, then you still get to do it in court.

      The point is that you actually have to stand up as a named person and defend your good name. Mom, dad, and the University will not take care of you for the rest of your life. College is the best time to learn that.

      Now, if you want to argue that the legal system is broken, then I'll agree. But, within the confines of the game, the RIAA is playing the hand they were dealt. You must do the same. If you want to change the rules of the game, then get out and vote. If that isn't fast enough, then shoot some RIAA lawyers every time they file a suit.

      But, do not, under any circumstances, be mad because mommy isn't wiping your ass anymore...

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
  2. But IPs and MAC Addresses can be spoofed... by Phroon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At my school, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, MAC spoofing was rather common. The reason for this was that university housing gave us 10mbps links, but only allowed us to transfer (up+down) 750MB per floating 24hr window without our bandwidth becoming significantly reduced (That's 10 to 15 minutes of full pipe transfer, FYI). Details here. Of course, this limiting was tied to MAC Address, as each room only had one port to the router. So to circumvent the limiting, people would look up MAC addresses and IPs on the network and spoof their network card to them. This caused weird things to happen when two computers with the same IP and MAC are on the same network, but in essence you could steal someone else's bandwidth. With such a practice in use, how can they possibly say that one person or another was the person that IP+MAC combo belonged to? They have records of what room the MAC was in use in when, but how can they be sure that it wasn't your roommate spoofing your MAC address?