RIAA Targets New Colleges, Still Avoids Harvard

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Billboard reports that the RIAA has filed its eighth round of 'early settlement' letters to twenty-two colleges. Continuing its practice of avoiding Harvard, the RIAA's new round does not include any letters to that institution, where certain law professors have counseled resistance to the RIAA and told the RIAA to 'take a hike'. The unlucky institutions on the receiving end of the 403 new letters include Arizona State University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Carnegie Mellon University (13), Cornell University (19), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (30), Michigan State University (16), North Dakota State University (17), Purdue University — West Lafayette and Calumet campuses (49), University of California — Santa Barbara (13), University of Connecticut (17), University of Maryland — College Park (23), University of Massachusetts — Amherst and Boston campuses (52), University of Nebraska — Lincoln (13), University of Pennsylvania (31), University of Pittsburgh (14), University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire, Madison, Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater campuses (62)."

Comments

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[eggoeater]

This wouldn't exactly do the torrent community any favors, but if I were running a torrent client from a campus LAN, I'd block inbound connections from IPs not on my campus. If they cant see me sharing, they cant sue me.

Kinda find it interesting that one of the best law schools in the country isn't receiving these threats.

Wait a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

...didn't you guys all get up in arms a few years back when the music industry was trying to sue the companies reponsible for developing the apps used to illegally distribute intelelctual property? Wasn't the argument that it's the users responsible, not the tools? Now they'rer after those responsible and you want them to stop. All the while you guys complain when the GPL is infringed. Hypocrite much?

Re:Wait a second...

[adminstring]

Sounds like a good subject for a Slashdot poll: What is your least favorite thing about the record companies that make up the RIAA?

For me, it would be hard to choose, although my choices would probably be these (in this order:)

1. They screw the artists with contracts which basically amount to indentured servitude.
2. They screw the consumers with excessive markups (made possible by # 3 below)
3. They have destroyed the integrity of radio with the ongoing practice of payola
4. They engage in mean-spirited legal attacks against defenseless people
5. They eat babies.

Well, that about sums it up for why I don't like major labels. Luckily, there are tons of great bands putting out their own stuff, so I can support the bands directly and avoid giving any cash to Their Satanic Majesties. Really we don't need these companies. We can support our local music scenes and independent touring bands. Do it for the poor little babies that the RIAA would purchase and eat if they got your money. That's right - think of the children!

More Absurdity

[anarking]

UMASS Boston doesn't even have dormitories, so how do they expect to be targeting specific students?! These blanket accusations to "set examples" and try to deter file sharing is absolutely despicable, and more colleges need to take hints from Harvard and not be intimidated by baseless claims that are already crumbling in the courts. All colleges that don't stand by their students and hand them over to the pack of lying dogs at the RIAA are complacent with the same absurdities and the students ought to wonder what they've been paying for at their respective colleges. The insanity continues, Fight the RIAA, Fight for your Rights!

Perfect picks.

[RobertM1968]

Wonderfully, it seems the RIAA is picking a bunch of colleges with both the money and the staff to assist in defending their students. With other colleges already taking similar stances, I expect that many of the current round will do so as well. Thus, I expect the RIAA to soon learn that this method is fraught with enough reasons to ensure they fail.

My only worry is their attempts at creating circumstances and/or laws that "coerce" the colleges to give up their (possibly) innocent (or not) students without due process.

Re:Perfect picks.

[Mark Programmer]

In the case of Carnegie Mellon in particular, I remember the policy being that CMU will pass the information requested by the RIAA right through to them, and has explicitly told its student body that it will not shield them from investigation and prosecution. I wonder if these institutions were cherry-picked for having such policies. Can anyone comment on (a) whether CMU's policy is unchanged, and (b) whether the other schools operate to a similar strategy?

How to beat the RIAA

[kimvette]

* Don't listen to artists from member labels. Well, at least not new artists
* Don't buy their product. If you MUST buy, find a way to buy directly from the artist, or download artist-authorized bootlegs and send your money to the artist.
* Don't download RIAA product. Downloads only help them to justify their whining.

RIAA does target Harvard...

[neapolitan]

I went to Harvard for college...

http://www.thecrimson.com/archives.aspx?SearchTerms=RIAA&SortField=0&PageSize=10&News=1&Opinion=2&Sports=3&Magazine=5&Arts=4

I hope the Crimson's servers stand up.

The RIAA frequently targeted students individually, and AFAIK continues threatening letters occasionally to individual students if they can figure out who you are. As you can see from the Crimson archives there was some pushback from the law school profs.

Back in the late 90's, your (fixed, non-DHCP) undergraduate IP at Harvard mapped to username.person.harvard.edu or something like that, making it trivially easy to see who was where, and you would 'magically' get spam for visiting websites, as your email was username@fas.harvard.edu. This was changed around '99 or so, now it is a roamXXX.student.harvard.edu I believe, and DHCP'd to a real IP address. This helps protect anonymity and individual student's activity, and Harvard does not give out the mapping to individual students.

Harvard internally sends curious emails reporting "excessive bandwidth" use to us, which also still continues AFAIK. Several of my friends received these, we think it was in the neighborhood of > 10 GB per day use. They basically said to quit it, or we might look further as to what you are doing, or bring you in front of a disciplinary committee. This was back in the days of i2hub (remember this?), and most of my friends just throttled their bandwidth with no further problems -- very scared of the hassle of defending yourself even if it is "legit" activity.

Re:side bar

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

As a recent grad from a major university in Boston, I can attest that universities are not charged with protecting or providing legal assistance for their students. Yes but they should not be jeopardizing and destroying their students' due process rights, either, as many of them are doing. This is what they should be, and in my view are legally obligated to be, doing.