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RIAA Adds 23 Colleges to Hit List, Avoids Harvard
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has added 23 new colleges and universities to its hit list, but deliberately omitted Harvard, apparently afraid of the reaction it's likely to get there, having been told by 2 Harvard law professors to take a hike. 'Under the new scheme, the RIAA sends out what it calls 'pre-litigation' settlement letters. Actually, they're self-incrimination documents and they're designed to extort preset amounts of around $3,000 from students with the empty promise that by paying up, they'll remove the threat of being hauled into court on charges of copyright infringement. In reality, all the students are doing is providing the RIAA with personal and private information which can conceivably be used against them ...'"
Should we really be surprised by this?
John 3:16. Know it.
Drink Yourself Healthy: MonaVie
This is nothing short of extortion. I never download music w/o paying for it, but now this just makes me want to bleed them to death by a thousand cuts--or megabytes.
You know what? If you all actually cared, you'd be spending less time on WoW, and more time writing your senators/organizing festivals to educate the public/burning crosses/whatever it takes. It is obvious the court system doesn't have a clue about the whole picture... how many of them do you think read slashdot a day? Probably -2. They need to get the info from somewhere. Make it common knowledge.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
The universities are: State University of New York at Morrisville, Georgia Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University of Central Arkansas, University of Delaware, Northern Michigan University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, George Washington University, Ohio State University, New Mexico State University, Eckerd College, University of Minnesota, California State University - Monterey Bay, University of Kansas, University of Missouri - Rolla, University of San Francisco, Case Western Reserve University, Northern Arizona University, San Francisco State University, University of Tulsa, Franklin and Marshall College, Western Kentucky University, and the Santa Clara University.
This sig left intentionally blank.
As a student at one of the named universities, I can only hope, for their sake and for the students', that the schools take a good hard look at their situations and view their internet account holders as paying customers and not criminals upon first accusation (looking at you, University of Kansas!). Throwing their own students in front of the RIAA bus would only lose them potential (and maybe current) students, and all the revenue they represent.
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
Extortion sure does sound like the right word for these "pre-litigation letters". Makes me glad I'm Canadian. We just have to pay a ridiculous levy on our iPods and CD-Rs because we're bound to use them to pirate music.
Just because Harvard was not singled out for this round of "pre-litigation" does not mean the RIAA is running scared from the university. A couple of law professors are not representatives of the school.
I work as an undergrad for the IT office of one of the universities near the top of the hitlist, and I've personally read the letters that they send. To actually read the letter in person really gives you the feeling like "Holy Hell, they're actually doing this." The letters are such bullshit, and it is obviously just a scam to save them the legal fees of taking people to court. The sad thing is that its working for them, and for backwards reasons; In the first batch our school received (which was about 30 letters), only one student didn't respond to the letter. They got sued, and i assume had to pay up in the end. The RIAA got 30 people's worth of payout from the cost of one court battle. Even if they lost that case, they still wound up with 29 payouts for the cost of 1. I'm sure if no one responded that some people wouldn't be sued, but who wants to take that risk? While i have a problem with the strong arm court tactics they've been taking in the past few years, at least the "sue everyone" tactic was still properly using the legal system to resolve their disputes. However, these letters are extortion, and its that simple.
Alot of times the university gets a cease and desist and (at least at the university I was at) deals with it internally through their judicial affairs department. I had to write a paper and pay a $50 fine because the RIAA said that I had some music on my computer (I was an idiot and used gnutella.) When I went into the judicial affairs office and said that they could never prove that I had the music on my computer and that they were really just throwing letters around, the university decided that I still had the music (which I did) and that I broke THEIR rules.
Motherfuckers.
The lawyers I've known have been careful about the language they use - the language they quote. The polemic you link to strikes me as singularly adolescent and inflammatory. It will fire up the crowd. Of that much I am sure. But it doesn't tell me what I need to know.
you were complaining about just recently.
So why don't you get your guns and go and murder a few lawyers? AFAICT your constitution says you should. Isn't that what 'Land of the Free' means?
But it's about time that a university stood up for its students. My guess is that worries over future endowment contributions will mean that universities begin to take the defense of their own a bit more seriously.
I think the thing that shocks me most is that many universities law faculties aren't going off on the current cases. I mean, these are supposed to be the 'liberal' part of the law. And ONLY Harvard is PUBLICLY strong enough to defend these charges? Where is that oft touted liberal element in the US university system?
But getting back to the core of the matter, I have to wonder why colleges are bending over about a matter so core to their own liability:
Colleges 'pirate' thousands of documents every year in a way that is NOT allowed by current US copyright law.. and they want to believe it's students.. not professors downloading papers that their library hasn't subscribed to? Taking a hard line on music copyright will only kill the colleges that take it up! They won't only drive away students... but also professors who suddenly can't do their research because of miserable libraries (BU COUGH).
If RIAA was to sue the student based on the information in the letter, they would open themselves to counterclaims of deceptive business practices and even racketeering. Given that a student would be able to declare bankruptcy for any significant judgement while RIAA members have billions of dollars in the bank, risks would far outweigh the benefits of such a lawsuit. I say the letters are exactly what they look like.
As I mentioned in a previous reply, I work for the IT office for one of the universities. Apparently the RIAA has been lobbying congress (duh), as we also received a 20-something page letter from congress which essentially slaps our wrist for being such a naughty school for allowing our students to be such heinous criminals, and provides us with a survey to gauge how we prevent students from committing these crimes. I believe the letter was also sent to all of the top 10 schools in the country. The survey asks questions about how much we limit/filter student access to the internet, whether we monitor student access, whether we report illegal activities, what sort of punishment we inflict on students who get a DMCA complaint, etc. The wording of the letter also seemed to suggest that schools should actually be doing these things. For the record, my school does none of those things, and everyone in the the whole IT and Network office building scoffed at the idea. It's a place of learning, not a prison. I really get the feeling that the RIAA's direct dealings with schools and students wont be a problem in the future if they can somehow convince congress to make it required that schools monitor student access, and prevent students from using certain applications.
Elsewhere on the website, Mike O'Donnell, a University of Chicago law professor, gives a good discussion of why the RIAA's policy of identifying people solely by their "unique" IP address is a load of crap. I'm honestly surprised more people haven't used this kind of a defense when the RIAA targets them. Maybe it's because it's not well-known knowledge yet?
In any case, I'm glad that I'm living off-campus next year as my university is on that list and is now notorious for its one strike policy. WTF is up with the idiots in Kansas anyways?
Just like how they "deliberately omitted" the 5,673 other schools not in the list of 23 they didn't omit?
Seems strange to assume that the RIAA is scared just because they picked other targets. They're choices in every other instance seem completely random, why would this one be any different?
This is like saying that MIT is "conspicuously absent" and claiming it is because MIT refused to log traffic for the RIAA on their internal network because of the sheer technical insanity of the request. Correlation != causation.
or better: uneducated in American law, but isn't this standard practice in any criminal investigation? Admit to a lesser crime to avoid the risk of being sentenced for a higher crime (that you didn't commit). Plea-bargain it is called, and in my eyes it is the worst form of extortion on the planet.
no UCs on there either. I guess I can keep azureus open after all.
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
Metal detectors, guards, security cameras, random searches for contraband, and you don't have a choice whether or not to be subjected to all of this... Sounds a lot like prison to me. If anything comes of the VT shooting hearings I'm afraid the same thing will eventually happen to universities.
Our young people are growing up being conditioned to accept police-state behavior. God help us, as a country, a couple of generations from now if this continues.
Add to that the fact that no proceedings exist until the RIAA has all your personal details I think it'll be harder creating something that will stand a chance in Court, especially since recent rulings where judges have started to ask the RIAA to follow proper legal process instead of trying to selectively dodge the bits that allow a recipient to ask some rather painful questions. Oh, and why are people asked to self-incriminate?
Copyright infringement is *not* good, but there's such a thing as proof and due process. Even if that is inconvenient, it has to be followed.
With rights come obligations - on both sides.
Insert
... I cannot help but think of the Cock Sparrer song "Take 'Em All" about record labels:
We worked our way up from East End pubs
To gigs and back stage passes
Ex-boxing champs, West End clubs
Americans in dark glasses
Driving ten grand cars, they drink in hotel bars
They're even making money in bed
They wouldn't be no loss, they ain't worth a toss
It's about time they all dropped dead.
[Chorus]
Take 'em all, take 'em all
Put 'em up against a wall and shoot 'em
Short and tall, watch 'em fall
Come on boys take 'em all
Well tough shit boys, it ain't our fault
Your record didn't make it
We made you dance, you had your chance
But you didn't take it
Well, I gotta go make another deal
Sign another group for the company
I don't suppose we'll ever meet again
You'd better get back to the factory.
[Chorus]
Take 'em all, watch 'em fall [x4]
[Chorus Repeat...]
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.
> The RIAA has added 23 new colleges and universities to its hit list, but deliberately omitted Harvard, apparently afraid of the reaction it's likely to get there, having been told by 2 Harvard law professors to take a hike.
So I lawyers trained at Harvard Law Degree are pretty sharp. All it took from them was a sternly written letter back, presumably quoting the L.A.W..
Colleges that cave-in should consider, what sort of a message does it send prospective students? "Get your law degree with us, and you too can learn how to fold like a wimp" Probably not the best places to learn about Constitutional Rights.
Who else Laughed Out Loud when they read this?
Do not attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by incompetence.
We've seen ample evidence that an IP address does not necessarily correlate to an individual. In an actual court case, the RIAA would have to also show that copyrighted material exists on the computer in question (through an actual forensic search of the hard drive), that the files were placed in a shared folder that can be accessed by others, that those same files have been actually distributed to others through a P2P network, that no one else has access to the computer in question, that the person in question was actually the one who placed the material there and that the computer has not been compromised through hacking of any kind, etc., etc., etc. WAY easier just to extort a quick $3K a pop through fear.
I wonder why certain schools are targeted, and certain individuals at that school. Are certain universities passed over because they have a law school? A savvy law or pre-law student may well see through the bullshit and give the RIAA a run for its money in court. (And may well have relatives who are lawyers and/or sympathetic professors willing to knowledgably defend them.) Someone in another message said that 30 letters had been sent to the college he works at. Now, unless that is one tiny little college, I find it hard to believe that only 30 students file-share. I wonder if they target specific schools and dorms within those schools because of the type of students likely to be caught up in the dragnet? (I.e., naive freshman, yes; senior pre-law student, no.)
It's not for nothing that so many of you refer to the RIAA as the MAFIAA. The tactics are the same. Tell me, who does the Mafia go after when they run a protection or extortion racket? The big corporation with a bevy of lawyers and a lot of power and influence? Or the small businessman, the store owner who has few resources, barely keeps his head above water, and may well be an immigrant of questionable status or otherwise afraid of losing what little he has? Bingo -- they go after the weak, ignorant, and vulnerable.
The RIAA has been VERY lucky so far in that they have only in a few cases gone after the "wrong" sort of target that will fight back. No matter how careful they are, hopefully sooner or later they will hit a few more people who can really make trouble for them.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Hey Everybody... let's all get together and help out our favorite greedy, draconian, ass monkeys!
Is there anybody out there who'd like to instigate an attack against Yale, Harvard, and the rest of the Ivy League in the name of the RIAA? I mean if they're so hot to trot, smacking colleges up side the head, they should go straight after the big guys! Put them in their place. Put the fear of God into the rest of the Universities in this country! Yeah, that's the ticket!
Someone needs to make them put up, or shut up.
Either their case has merits, and therefore they should be going after every college... or it is groundless, and they're guilty of frivolous lawsuits in the name of extorting those least able to protect themselves from legal harassment. So we need to all step up and let them know, that they can't just go around picking on smaller schools and weaking institutions.
The RIAA wants to poke a horets nest with a stick, they should get all the stinging their money can buy!
How many of the kids of the RIAA/Recording industry/Ruling class elite attend Havard?
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
You know they will. And eventually the 'big' targets will stand alone and they will cave too. I kind of hope that in the end the RIAA figures out a sufficiently robust DRM that coupled with their legal tactics just drives people away from their content and no one pays it any attention at all. Then maybe Jay-Z and the RIAA can sue each other. Because really your only weapon is to stop paying them for anything at any time for any of their 'content'.
Except the 2 or 3 that voted against the war and Ron Paul.
The rest.... they would be sacked by Donald in an instant for not doing their job, ie growing govt beyond akira size.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Colleges singled out:
State University of New York at Morrisville
Georgia Institute of Technology
Pennsylvania State University
University of Central Arkansas
University of Delaware
Northern Michigan University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
George Washington University
Ohio State University
New Mexico State University
Eckerd College
University of Minnesota
California State University - Monterey Bay
University of Kansas
University of Missouri - Rolla
University of San Francisco
Case Western Reserve University
Northern Arizona University
San Francisco State University
University of Tulsa
Franklin and Marshall College
Western Kentucky University
and Santa Clara University.
Of course we can!
1. Attend a $10 online course of some kind at Harvard.
2. Download your moozik.
3. ???
4. Profit!
stuff |
- Remember a while back, the president of Pennsylvania State University announced a revolution in music. Penn State would "provided a music service" and agreed to pay the RIAA companies for student music up front. The service was really paid for by adding a charge to the all students IT service fee. There was a stink that only Windows users could use the service. Now, despite the fact that the RIAA Mafia has already been paid for the music, the music mafia want more money.
- The true price of blackmail is that it never ends!
- As a Penn State alumni, I assert that the proper thing to do is for the Penn State Prexy publicly admit error (in the past agreement) and commit Penn State to ensuring that due process to the letter of the law, is followed.
I go to Georgia Tech, which to my surprise was on this list of horribly evil and bad schools. What exactly are the criteria the RIAA used to determine these schools? Tech has a 3-strike policy and has people who actually know what they're doing monitoring the network. First strike = warning, second strike = suspension from network and an interview, third strike = banned from the GT network. Why does the RIAA feel the need to step in on this as well?
Oh, right... $3000 is a pretty big motivator.
The RIAA are not the police, but they certainly seem to be acting like it. There has got to be some law clearly being broken by their strong-arm enforcement and intimidation tactics. The crime of copyright infringement is minor compared to the slimey law tactics I keep reading about. What is it going to take to stop it?
Though the Boards probably stand behind their lawyers' actions, the day to day instances of this sort of extortionist behavior are the brainchilds of the RIAA lawyers...it's these lawyers who are the hired thugs in suits who "rough up" college kids to fill their resumes with "accomplishments" that they proudly show off to management and get promotions.
You like playing your music on Apples? Well, we got your number! How do you like them apples?
I also attend Georgia Tech. What is funny is that under Georgia law, and possible all law, that our parents can't see our grades, know our enrollment, or anything like that.
Yet at the same time, the RIAA is allowed to find out our information, which is legally privately protected? I believe even if our parents were to sue or subpoena Georgia Tech, the would still not be able to find out our information as it is protected by state law.
This is one of the reasons Harvard is on top of their game, because they recognize the rights of students attending.
I may be wrong about the exact extend of the law, but I know the parents part is correct. Just my 2.
Of all the Universities listed, none of them are known for their law schools. Who do they specifically exclude? The #2 ranked law school in the US (Source: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/ usnews/edu/grad/rankings/law/brief/lawrank_brief.p hp)
This only makes the fact that this campaign is based on preying on ignorance all the more obvious. No law students would fall for this, so they go to schools where they don't have to worry about law students.
It seems that the list is picked based on size alone, not based on any actual theft evidence.
I can attest that at PSU there is absolutely no illegal downloading going on at Penn State, mostly because the students are limited to 1.5 GBytes of upload/download per week (and they disconnect you for a semester if you go over). There are also firewalls (nominally designed to stop the viruses and intrusions) that are also preventing most filesharing services, including BitTorrent. Lastly, PSU pays for free Napster access for each student, so they all can get RIAA music legally anyways.
You mean, Harvard paid them enough to avoid any bad press.
Nice.
My college isn't much better off. I know from talking to the I&IT people that they have cease-and-desists pre-signed and ready to send out under the RIAA's orders. I also happen to know that no one who works there cares enough to actually use these documents. The worst that ever happens here is our network goes down every 6 months because some idiot leaked the password to the wrong person (mind you the people in charge of shutting it down are probably perfectly aware of it themselves--heck someone accidentally mailed every student on campus asking for the network password 4 months ago) and that person had to comply (i.e. send a cease and desist from atop the dusty pile) or else lose their job.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
I hope that the RIAA doesn't read ./ and that i'm not shooting several fellow alumni and students in the foot with this, but from what I've seen the RIAA has stayed far away from Berklee College of Music even moreso than Harvard. Juilliard too.
I hear about lawsuits and letters against students at many other area schools (BU, BC, etc), but Berklee has always been kept out of it. My guess? The RIAA doesn't want to cause more "real enemies" from their artists. Each year, Berklee kicks out one or two groups that are signed to a major label, and many more of us are signed to major publishing deals. I don't think the RIAA wants to get the alumni upset that they are attacking fellow alumni and students.
For those that don't know, Berklee alumni are a serious part of the industry. Between the back end business parts, arrangers, composers, engineers and the front artists that are all Berklee alums, I don't think they want to walk on eggshells with Berklee.
And seriously, the average Berklee student has 100x larger music collection than any Harvard student I've met. We also buy more CDs than most people, but many of us download a good bit too.
If you were the RIAA would you piss off big alumni like John Mayer, Jan Hammer, Susan Tedeschi, Paula Cole, and Quincy Jones?
Yes, Harvard has several big lawyers and leaders as alumni, but pissing on Berklee is pissing on themselves- so they don't do it. Google "Berklee RIAA lawsuit" and try the same with any other school (harvard or BU) and you don't find any suits against Berklee students.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
You fail to realize that the majority of professors self-identify as liberal or leftist.
_ Web.pdf
Read that again. They self-identify as liberal or leftist. They openly discuss their liberal leanings, and freely admit their positions on contentious subjects.
http://www.jewishresearch.org/PDFs2/FacultySurvey
So, that comment about wingnut Republicans? It's wrong.
Maybe you should learn WTF you're running your mouth about before you say something else stupid.
Kids steal anything these days - music, movies, termpapers, tests. Thats why so many are so dumb like in Jay Leno's Jaywalking. They havent tried at all to learn anything.
Harvard missing?
So is Yale.
So is University of Michigan, with the 2nd ranked law school after Yale.
Curious. But they can try to beat the hell out of NMU. What bullies, punching on weaker people.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Dear Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Warner,
I would like to inform you of my recent decision to stop purchasing music produced by your record labels.
In the past, I was a strong supporter of the music industry, music artists and the Compact Disc technology. I regularly purchased CD albums for several reasons. First, I consider myself an audiophile and enjoy the quality of music offered by the Compact Disc format. Second, I collect music and often relisten to an album many years after buying it. Third, I believe music artists should be rewarded for their hard work and skill. With respect to my favorite bands (Tool, the Cardigans and Garbage) I also believe it provides
incentive for them to continue producing music. It was because of these three reasons that I generally opposed and condemned the idea of downloading music illegally. I considered myself to be, what many refer to as, the music industry's ideal customer.
In the past few weeks, this all changed; and since your companies' prosperity in the music industry is entirely enabled by persons like myself, I would like to tell you why.
I have grown tired of reading about the endless lawsuits and out-of-court settlement letters spewed from your companies' legal departments. I am a 25 year old American student pursuing an MSc in Germany and find your methodology for dealing with students at American universities revolting and offensive. I also believe your companies' business model is flawed, rigid and destined to fail. Your inability to adapt to a high-quality digital distribution model (without DRM) will quickly undermine your revenue stream. There is no justification for a music CD to cost almost twice the price of a DVD movie; especially when one compares the production costs of the two.
Today, when I walked into the local music store, I took a look at the price of a new CD release, considered buying it, then decided to go home and illegally download it instead. I will continue to act accordingly until the RIAA changes its attitude, business model and pricing scheme.
This letter would not be justly sent without an offer to regain me as a customer. I therefore propose that you A) offer all music through iTunes DRM-free and with the option to download the files in a "lossless" format and B) reduce song prices to $0.25 per song with 50% of that going directly to the artist and the other 50% to be split at your discretion between the RIAA and Apple. Should you agree to said proposal, I will hapily purchase your music again on a frequent basis and actively campaign for the RIAA amongst my social networks and on Slashdot.org.
Sincerely,
Benjamin P
OK, the general attitude here is "I'll have my music and nobody is gonna stop me!"
The real question is has the RIAA ever won in court? Obviously, the uninformed opinion here is no, but has it happened?
The second point is can anyone be successfully sued in civil court for anything on the Internet? Assuming they do not brag about it on open forums or otherwise admit their actions, it would seem the general opinion here is that since nobody saw you do it, it cannot be proven who did it. Therefore, no responsibility exists. This seems like a very dangerous position to take because it pretty much establishes a legal defense for any sort of action, legal or not, on the Internet. Does this sound like a good way to go? Should use of the Internet convey immunity?
However, in an ex parte suit, their normal non-university approach, no defendant ever appears in court to show why personal information should not be released with the evidence provided.
And in these university cases, the university isn't being sued directly -- only threatened with bad publicity. As such, too many universities don't consider it worth their fighting on behalf of their students and cave in to demands that should be easy to shoot down.
The RIAA is using these cases in their attempt to rewrite copyright law more to their liking, and are being allowed to get away with it far too much!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Possibly because its better to have a few future heads of major corporations, federal judges, etc. in your back pocket using blackmail than it is to extract a couple of bucks from them now.
Have gnu, will travel.
Because the RIAA doesn't have a valid, legal case, and are committing acts more akin to extortion, than valid lawsuits. That's why!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It would be hilarious if the lawyers were swamped with thousands of responses to the settlement letters using fake cedentials. Motivated students should contact their friendly IT staff to get copies of these letters for this research.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
As far as I know, they have student legal services that are (supposed) to protect and advise students in any legal trouble.
The question then becomes, why cave just for the RIAA?
I know the weekday news anchor in a city where one of the 23 universities is located. I'm trying to get her to run a story on this, ASAP. It's a small measure, but the more awareness of these heavy-handed tactics, the better, no? I'll post a link to the story if/when it runs, for those who are interested.
The MAFIAA (RIAA/MPAA) are nothing more than legal fronts for their members to do these unsavory acts. They're not selling services, they're paid to take certain actions that would be inadvisable for the individual companies to take. Can you imagine the backlash were Sony, Disney, or Universal to try one of these lawsuits on their own?
So, money is not the direct reason for the MAFIAA's existence in and of itself. It is, however, to allow their corporate members to continue to create a "market" wherein they set the prices. By stifling alternatives to their pricing structure, they lock the market. After all, if you want lossless music, they're pretty much the only game in town.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Dear Benjamin P,
LOL!
Sincerely,
RIAA
In reality, all the students are doing is providing the RIAA with personal and private information which can conceivably be used against them ...'"
;-), and I never hear from them again. My gmail account gets about 1200 messages per month in its "Spam" folder, and roughly half of them are now phishing attempts.
Hey, I get one or two dozen phishing messages per day. What's one more? If the email filters don't catch it, I can flag it as "spam" (and wish they had a separate "phish" category
So what's the big deal here? Don't these college students know how to recognize a phishing message when they see it?
Someone should explain to them that if they reply, their info will just be added to an "easy marks" database that's sold to other companies, resulting in a flood of other such messages from shady companies looking for naive victims.
We really should be teaching kids to defend themselves on the Net. The first lesson should be not to reply to such solicitations, ever.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
The people I've talked to (while I haven't talked directly with OIT about this some of my friends who are on #2 have) said on #3 they turn your information over to the **AA. Has something changed?
..I heard that song for the first time last night on the Sirius Punk channel.. ;)
SYS 64738
RIAA doesn't target music colleges because it would be hard to prove the music was copied in it's entirety for a non-educational purpose. Good luck proving that a music college is not downloading music to use as demonstration or example during lectures/projects/etc in a music class in the music department.
PS. my captcha was INDOLENT????!!?!
I'm unaware of a Georgia-specific law that supersedes this, but I'd be very surprised for any law to say that it trumps a court order unless it was some national security PATRIOT-type super-secret bullshit.
It's often misunderstood, but educational purposes does not release a person from all copyright things.
Moreso, the RIAA more often gets people on sharing of music, and I think any Berklee student could say that their outbound file sharing was for education only.
Tibbon
tibbon.com