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University of Kansas Will Not Forward RIAA Letters
Bonewalker writes "Looks like the University of Kansas may not be as pro-RIAA (or anti-student) as initially assumed last week from our recent discussion. From the Chronicle article: 'Kansas officials told the student newspaper that they will not heed the recording industry's request to pass pre-litigation notices on to 14 students accused of music piracy. Many institutions have forwarded the letters -- which offer students a chance to settle file-sharing claims out of court at discounted rates -- but some have declined to do so, citing concerns over students' privacy.' Of course, this doesn't make that 'one-strike' policy any less flawed, but it shows that they aren't simply throwing their students under the RIAA bus, as one poster put it."
The letters don't come with the student's name on them. Rather, the RIAA gives the university an ip and time of an alleged offense, and sticks the university with the charge of tracking down who that student is. This can be quite a bit of work, especially when the RIAA waits longer than the university keeps detailed logs. At my university, nearly 30 students were to be notified, but because detailed logs were only kept for 30 days only 7 seven students got letters.
The RIAA letters aren't sent in the mail. This isn't a USPS filtering.
The RIAA contacts the university saying IPs X.X.X.X and Y.Y.Y.Y have been sharing songs. Please give the users this letter. Other universities have done the look up and found which users were those IP addresses belonged to and forwarded the letters on to the students. Kansas has effectively told the RIAA to fuck off.
I fail to see how it would be the responsibility of the University to do dirty work of the RIAA regardless of their stance on music/file sharing. If they were responsible that would mean the provider of internet access is responsible for the way it's subscribers utilize their service. I'm sure the school, in most cases would attempt to pass on notices to students unless it goes against policy, but what is somewhat different about this case is that the RIAA is somehow imposing responsibility on the school. Even though the involvement at this point is minimal, it's a slippery slope that could lead to the university policing it's students or acting as an intermediary in a potentially tricky legal situation. 14 letters soon becomes 1400 letters, and then starts using up university resources. Now they have direct relationship between the RIAA and the school, where it is assumed the school is going to handle this burden of distribution at a minimum.
After Michael (Al Pacino's character) goes into hiding, Tom Hagen(Robert Duvall) says to Kay (Diane Keaton): "If I accept that letter and you told a Court of Law I accepted it, they would interpret it as my having knowledge of his whereabouts. Just wait Kay, he'll contact you."
Somehow I don't think that's far off.