University of Washington Will Aid RIAA

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."

Comments

Forwarding, not revealing.

[saintlupus]

Most universities will do this sort of thing, forwarding along the letters so that the students have an inkling of what's going on if/when they get their subpoena.

Those of you calling colleges "spineless", would you rather the kids were blindsided by the legal system instead?

--saint

I still remember the...

[stelmack]

...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.

Re:I still remember the...

[Bios_Hakr]

>>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...

Re:I still remember the...

[Nazlfrag]

You have it all backwards.

Lower class people may have a hard time defending themselves, but, they also have very little to lose.

Actually, they have the most to lose, because they will almost certainly lose the little they have.

Middle class people have something to lose, but most live little better than paycheck-2-paycheck. Very few have savings. Most are already heavily in debt.

Another few thousand of debt could easily be enough to relegate them to lower class status.

The upper class have much to lose, but have no real reason to fight. Better to write a check and do away with the whole mess than to pay a lawyer.

They have the least to lose, so they eat the loss and go on their merry way.

Those who have little, treasure what little they have more than any other.

Re:How should the RIAA defend itself?

[sssssss27]

So its pretty clear that going after individual copyright violaters is looked down upon on slashdot. I also remember back when napster was big everyone on here was upset that they were getting sued because they werent actually breaking the law, it was just the individual users.

So is it just one group who thinks that indivuals shouldnt be sued and a different group who thinks that the companies should be immune? How should the RIAA protect its intellectual property rights? Is it just a fundamental belief on here that copyright holders should have no recourse against violaters?

I don't think anyone on Slashdot is against the RIAA going after copyright violators it's just how they are going about doing it that bothers people. The RIAA is exploiting the ignorance of the justice system in order to get what it wants. Also, they seem to mostly go after those who lack the ability to adequately defend themselves. Then when someone does try to defend themselves the RIAA tries to have the case dismissed.

The RIAA has shown time and time again that their methodology to figure out who is infringing on copyright is flawed at best. I would have no problem with them going after someone if they brought more to the table than just a screenshot with an IP address or at least were held more accountable for when they are wrong. Their so called expert was anything but and they have sued dead people, minors, and those who have never even owned a computer.

Going after college students is just another extension of this. Lets say the RIAA sends some random IP addresses that they know are in use to a university. These are college students, relatively up on todays technology, what do you think is the probability that they will have one or more songs that the RIAA says they have allegedly downloaded? Pretty darn high you think? And if they don't have all of the songs they just say that they deleted them. Just because they have the songs doesn't mean they downloaded/uploaded them from/to a P2P network. Maybe they made a digital copy of a CD they own. So while you ask how can the RIAA protect its property rights I ask how do I protect my rights?

Link to full text of letter sent to students

[tor528]

http://students.washington.edu/tor528/full_letter. html

Re:This just in...

[Jason Earl]

You are kidding right.

The University of Washington is heavily subsidized by the government. The students aren't paying for bandwidth, taxpayers are paying for bandwidth, and I can guarantee you that they aren't paying for the bandwidth so that college students can distribute the latest pop albums.

Besides, why precisely should the schools get tangled up with the RIAA. The University of Washington has copyrighted material that it wants protected, why should it aid students in distributing someone else's copyrighted materials illegally? I can't believe that *all* Universities, or at least all public Universities, don't do the same thing. When you consider the wasted bandwidth, and the increased likelihood of viruses and other malware that invariably follow online filesharing it is a wonder that this isn't the status quo.

I don't like the RIAA either, but I protest by not listening to its copyrighted material, not by trying to make their material even more popular by distributing its wares.

Academic Freedom?

[golob]

So, in full disclosure, I am a human embryonic stem cell (huESC) researcher at the University of Washington.

Let's say Focus on the Family writes a series of letters to the University accusing a "John Doe" embryonic stem cell researcher at the university of violating federal restrictions on the creation of new lines. Mind you, they've shown no real material information that any individual has violated the law, just blanket accusations with flimsy identifying information.

They say to the University "give us personal information on every human embryonic stem cell researcher at the University or we'll subpoena that information."

The University replies: "Well, we can't roll over that easily. Send us letters demanding that the recipient contact you or suffer severe legal concequences, and we'll forward them to everyone working on human embryonic stem cells here. Then you'll get your identifying information, and we'll be off the hook."

Let's be clear about what's being done here. From the original e-mail:

The RIAA is now sending colleges and universities a letter for each instance they find of a student illegally downloading material from the internet and requesting the university to identify the individual student and forward the letter to him or her... 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. We do so primarily because we believe students should have the opportunity to avail themselves of the settlement option if they so choose.

Whether the University is directly identifying students to the RIAA or indirectly does so by sending the students a letter directing them to contact the RIAA, the net result is the same.

Do people not understand why academic institutions MUST behave differently than this?

What if the coal industry threw letters at climatologists?

What if the junk food industry thew letters at obesity researchers?

The University has access to a massive collection of very personal information, including detailed financial, academic and medical records. It is essential for the primary mission of the University to protect its members against angered outside forces. Without this commitment to protect academics, we'll never be able to get honest answers to questions.

The proper course was to:
1. Not save identifying information in the first place
2. Tell the RIAA to come back with their own damn identifying information.
3. Send letters instructing students to not self-incriminate themselves
4. Provide proper legal services than (borderline negligent) legal advice to settle to any and all demands.

Re:How should the RIAA defend itself?

[bky1701]

How should the RIAA protect its intellectual property rights? Is it just a fundamental belief on here that copyright holders should have no recourse against violaters?

I don't think control of information is a right.

In a world where the ability to eat, get basic health care and work (since the before 2 are not rights, this logically should be....) aren't rights, I fail to see why an artificial monopoly on distribution of ideas should be one.

It's clear to anyone with half a brain copyright doesn't exist to "support art and sciences." Why does it exist? It generates profit. Artificial profit, that is. There are not really good being transfered, just money shuffled around and "rights" to use information granted.

The reason this exists? Taxes and control. Moving money = taxes = guns = power = moving money. It's the system modern society is built around. The more null-goods a state can provide, the more power it gets. If governments realize this or not is not clear, but I would be willing to bet some people in the US government get it.

Call me a tin-foil-hat, but this isn't much more a conspiracy theory than "the government is full of *IAA bribed politicians!" and I'd bet a lot more accurate...

But IPs and MAC Addresses can be spoofed...

[Phroon]

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?

re: The issue runs deeper.....

[King_TJ]

Obviously, I can't speak for everyone here -- but my own belief is that government went wrong when they first started treating these infringement cases as *criminal* vs. *civil* matters.

There's NO reason an association the size of the RIAA really needs the government's assistance to get "justice" against infringements on the musical works they hold rights to. The people sharing these songs via p2p, web pages, ftp, or any other electronic method are doing so without any financial compensation whatsoever.

Every time they pursue one of these cases in criminal courts of law, they cost the American taxpayer large amounts of money, using the time of prosecutors, appointed judges, etc. They *could*, of course, opt to "do the right thing" and go after these individuals in strictly civil cases. But that would put the effort squarely on them to build their cases - rather than relying on "boilerplate" complaints and standardized tables of penalties/punishments for criminal copyright infringement that federal courts already devised.

Criminal prosecution should really be reserved for tangible crimes against persons and property .... not relatively "fluffy and intangible" losses due to intellectual property "violations"!

My belief is, if businesses and individuals had to resort to civil remedies for these violations, we'd see much more reasonable and logical outcomes. (EG. A starving college student sharing copies of his/her purchased collection of CDs wouldn't be pressured to "pay back" tens of THOUSANDS of dollars for doing so. Instead, you might see the punishment actually fit the "crime". They might be charged a few hundred bucks, making them rethink how wise it was to offer copyrighted musical works to any and all takers, free of charge. People wouldn't be rushing to condemn the RIAA like they do now, if THIS was the norm.)

And links on how to defend against RIAA lawsuits

[btarval]

Ray Beckerman, who's known here as the famous NYCountryLawyer (and the one who has won the most battles against the RIAA) has put together an article on

How the RIAA Litigation Process Works

There's also an excellent overview of this here, entitled: The RIAA vs. John Doe, a layperson's guide to filesharing lawsuits.

IMHO, these should be required reading for anyone who is hit by these lawsuits. If you want the real condensed version, it is this (from the second link):

"The best advice if you are sued by the RIAA is to quickly retain a lawyer who has some experience dealing with RIAA cases. Having knowledgeable council early on won't stop the process from being difficult, but can give you a better chance of protecting your rights."

Finally, here's another article that Ray has put together, on a Directory of Lawyers Defending Against RIAA Lawsuits

I got the latter from the second article. I have no idea if there are defensive legal strategies that any students can employ before they get a letter from the RIAA, but it would be interesting and useful if a skilled lawyer could make the University think twice before just bending over for the RIAA.