Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

RIAA Campaign Against Students Hits Stormier Seas

Posted by Zonk on from the get-out-of-the-pool dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "It's been astutely observed that the RIAA's "ex parte" campaign against "John Doe" college students seems to have run into much stormier waters than its campaign against regular folks. Discovery motions were thrown out by the judges in cases involving the University of New Mexico and the College of William and Mary, and motions to quash have been made by students at Boston University, Oklahoma State University, and the University of South Florida. The RIAA might find it particularly troubling that the students are coming in armed with substantial expert witness declarations attacking the entire underpinning of the RIAA's case, that the students are finding each other and banding together, and that the Chairman of Boston University's Computer Science Department went to bat — as an expert witness — for the BU students."

5 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. RIAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    i love them, I can i engage in sexual activity with them?

    please type the word in this image: reefer

  2. The flywheel is spinning by cecil36 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Once more people realize what the RIAA is up to, all this insanity will stop.

    On a side noe, don't we do 'First Post!' around here anymore?

    1. Re:The flywheel is spinning by FinchWorld · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      On a side noe, don't we do 'First Post!' around here anymore?

      No, were on to something far better.

      First "Reply To This"! Who wants first flame?

      --
      "I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
  3. Tired of source being closed by syousef · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Every time a product starts to get good, some greedy fugknuckle on the project decides to close the source. We've seen it again and again. Here are the ones the come to mind:

    FICS - Free Internet Chess Server
    DD-WRT - Firmware for Linksys router
    CDDB - Distrubted CD catalogue system
    BitTorrent - File transfer (on /. yesterday)
    Now MySQL

    I'm sure others could add plenty more examples. Anyone who committed to developing or using these products because the were FOSS has been badly burned.

    I think this is becoming a bigger threat to open source than any other and it certainly puts me off contributing anything. What I don't understand is how this is even possible under GPL? I thought if you built on it, you had to release the source.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  4. Re:Students are the biggest activist demographic by Rimbo · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    That's particularly true in Stillwater in the Summer, when baseball season's over and football season hasn't started yet.