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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."
Well, sure they won't. They're kicking the students out after one strike, so what's the point in forwarding a letter to someone who's no longer there!
I'm JOKING... I think.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
The RIAA could start a new branch, the Global Oversight Department, to oversee this stuff.
They'd probably get a better response from places like Kansas with that branch.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I'm glad they decided to stand up for their students. College is (like it or not) partially a parent-replacement, and a good parent tries to discipline their kids before handing them over to the legal system for pirating a few bucks worth of thoughtless major label tunes. I am much more likely to send my kid to University of Kansas now!
technical writing / development
"letters -- which offer students a chance to settle file-sharing claims out of court at discounted rates"
Amazing, the RIAA is now in the business of offering discounted lawsuit settlements. "Our lowest offer ever! Settle for only $999, no evidence scrutinized! Limited time so act now!"
(I'm a home user, not a student) from HBO because they caught me uploading The Sopranos. Well, actually, I was downloading it, but using bittorrent so i was of course also uploading. Anyway, I was glad to see it was just a cease and desist kind of thing and not a settlement offer. I've been a little more careful since throwing away that pair of underwear, I must confess.
I am not left-handed, either!
The letters are addressed to IP addresses. The RIAA expects the university to do its legwork for them. Next time, read TFA.
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.
Kansas University is a pretty big school (~40k students I think...) The other large university (Kansas State University) just blocks all P2P; I used to work for the Enterprise Server group there.
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.
Well, you proved you aren't a lawyer here. There is a standard way to get the IP->name mapping. Its called a court order. You go before a judge, show your evidence, and if the judge agrees there's merit in the case they will order the university to hand the information over. Until then, the university is well within their rights to keep the information secret. If the state has any decent privacy laws, they may even be legally bound to do so.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Are these sent by certified mail? Does the RIAA need proof of delivery to pursue their lawsuit successfully? Or can they just go ahead and sue, without the student getting any warning?
All the article says is that "The University will not, however, forward students the RIAA pre-litigation letter, which gives them the opportunity to settle out of court."
How does this help the student? That's a genuine question, not a rhetorical question. Anyone know the answer?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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.
i posted this letter in the last story on /. regarding the RIAA but i did it a bit late (3 or 4 days after the story appeared on /.) so i dont think anyone got to read it.
below ive appended the letter which i am sending to the RIAA.
additionally, this recent story about the University of Kansas has inspired me to write letters to the other universities that have indeed forwarded the letters to the students -- regarding my decision to rule out all of them as places to do a PhD.
i highly encourage all of you to send similar letters. its time people start doing something about this rather than just complaining about it on internet forums.
--------
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 have over 200 CDs. I often re-listen 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 $0.50 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 happily 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
We used to call it "The Berkley of the Midwest" back when I was there.
Let's not forget that KU was where the student union was burnt down and classes were called early back during the Vietnam war. It was serious stuff.
As a faculty member at University of Kansas, I had the opportunity to talk to someone involved in the one-strike decision. Here's how he described the process of reaching their decision, paraphrased by me: Originally, KU adopted a three-strikes policy, and a few years ago, it seemed effective, as some students, when confronted with their first or second strike, pleaded to misunderstanding the policies of ResNet regarding filesharing. Basically, the three strikes allowed for learning to occur. Recently, however, the attitude of students when they received their first or second strike was, "eh." Students were aware of the policy, and they were simply ignoring it because they knew they had two "get out of jail free" cards in their pocket. Because no learning seemed to be occurring when implementing a first or second strike, the school decided such warnings were ineffective, and thus the one-strike-and-you're-out policy we have now. I'm not arguing for or against the new policy, but I thought folks would find the rationale KU used to reach their decision interesting.
Why? Everything you do on the Internet is completely anonymous unless you (or your ISP) rats you out.
If all they have is an IP address it does not show anything about who was at the keyboard. If they get that far, they can examine the computer and find pirated files. This still does not say who was at the keyboard when that occurred. Are you responsible for everything your computer does? Ever heard of spyware and BackOrifice? Of course you can't be held responsible for files on your computer.
If the University doesn't consider the "account holder" to be responsible for all activity on the connection, then it could have been your Auntie Em or Cousin Bo. Or the guy leeching WiFi in the parking lot.
At least you think you do.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And the one flaw with this is that there isn't any "evidence" against the person until the person is identified. Woops. There is also a little problem - there is no one-to-one mapping of IP addresses to people. You can tie the IP address to a computer but it is completely unknown who was sitting at the keyboard.
Oh, you can guess. And most of the time you'd be right. But it isn't proof. I suppose in a country where people are put to death for having the wrong skin color in the wrong place that you could probably lose a lawsuit because your computer did something illegal. But the way this is set up today there is no proof. At a minimum I would think you would need a witness that saw you uploading at the exact time the alleged activity took place.
The final note on this would be if someone created a "Trojan uploader" that was installed via email worm. You get it on your computer and it uploads music and video files without your knowledge. Or, at least your direct knowledge. Then your computer is independently performing illegal acts anyone participating. This would pretty much end the possibility of prosecuting anyone for anything involving the Internet.
Emailed a threatening letter to the White House? Must have been MalMail. This is Windows, after all.
Uploading copyrighted music? That SneakUploader is going around again. Have to clean the machine.
Stabbed your wife 37 times with a dull fork? I'm afraid you're gonna have to take the rap for that one. Windows may be bad, but it isn't that bad yet.
You should try that argument next time you get a parking ticket on your unattended car.