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RIAA Afraid of Harvard
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "According to a report on p2pnet.net, the RIAA's latest anti-college round of "early settlement" letters targets 7 out of 8 Ivy League schools, but continues to give Harvard University a wide berth. This is perhaps the most astonishing display of cowardice exhibited to date by the multinational cartel of SONY BMG, Warner Bros. Records, EMI, and Vivendi/Universal (the "Big Four" record companies, which are rapidly becoming less "big"). The lesson to be drawn by other colleges and universities: "All bullies are cowards. Appeasement of bullies doesn't work. Standing up to bullies and fighting back has a much higher success rate.""
If a student brings a lawyer to the school where I teach, the school always caves. One student was able to graduate in spite of the fact that he copied most of the work for a final year course. Not only that but he couldn't demonstrate competence no matter how much extra time he was given.
We also paid tens of thousands of dollars to a teacher who didn't pass his probation because it would be cheaper than paying lawyers.
Harvard is the lawyer breeding ground. I'm fairly sure, almost everyone working in the legal departments of the various RIAA members comes from there.
Now, who do they have their knowledge from? The profs there. When you teach, do you tell your student everything you know? More important, when you learn, do you know afterwards as much as your teacher does?
Rarely loses the master against his padawan. So to challenge him, a fool you must be.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you're a laywer for the RIAA, you are not paid to be brave. You are paid to further the agenda of the recording industry. If they believe suing Harvard students would hinder rather than help their cause, well is that really being "cowardly" or is it being smart? Would suing Harvard be "brave" or would it be counterproductive to their goals?
I'm as disgusted with the RIAA's tactics as anyone, but this childish name calling is getting old. It seems like every day on the front page of Slashdot is some article title with an overblown ad hominem attack against persons, groups or companies that rub us the wrong way. C'mon, people. We're smart, educated and savvy, do we really need to stoop to this?
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Right, and that's why they're not suing anyone at Yale. Oh wait...
I find it funny that they are targeting 7 out of 8 ivy league schools. Doesn't that say that maybe pirating is a good thing? Maybe these smart people know that pirating is illegal in the minds of the IP holders but don't care. They would much rather get educated and cultured through things like torrenting and other p2p programs. At what point does the public have a say in what is right and what is wrong? The way I view p2p and torrenting is that it is the biggest library of any kind. It holds not only entertainment but educational purposes as well. I have tons of videos, music, games, etc. that are very illegal but then again I don't care. 90% of that stuff I wouldn't of seen to begin with so I don't feel guilty about taking what I wouldn't of seen or heard or enjoyed. A lot of it is educational (ie. Modern Marvels, Discovery, History Channel, etc)
I do not care about actors, musicians, directors, managers, producers because they all get paid no matter what. If they are good they will continue to get paid. When I see shows like MTV cribs...and what these celebs buy with my money...screw them. They don't need their 3rd or 4th super car. They don't need their insane boats or whatever it may be. I am sorry but actors/actresses don't need to be paid millions for their roles in movies. Musicians shouldn't expect $90,000 for a small gig at a club. Execs make way too much money for me to give a rats ass about me stealing a damn album.
These guys have outdated ways of thinking and they are fighting for their last breath and instead of working with the consumers they go and fight the consumers. All I know is that I want to see propirating videos on youtube.
Well you're challenging the entire premise of my story, and I heartily disagree with you. These guys pick on defenseless people. That doesn't take anything except cowardice.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I would say that the RIAA is a white elephant
-1 not first post
I think one likely reason that the RIAA/MPAA are avoiding Harvard is because of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society which is an outgrowth of the Harvard Law school. You may be familar with Berkman through the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, OpenNet Initiative (mapping government repression of the Internet worldwide), and the Stop Badware projects.
Berkman is very forward-looking and proactive regarding emerging issues of Law and Technology. The various fellows have been vocal and supportive of copyright reform. With such an interested, knowledgeable band of law professors and law students, it would be a serious black-eye if the RIAA attempted to litigate on the Harvard campus. I have to believe that they would be handed a bruising defeat, that would establish precedent regarding their campaign of extorting* settlement monies from poor college students.
* I mean extortion in the common, non-technical sense. Don't sue me for libel please.
Pretend I said something meaningful or insightful here.
No, Mr. Beckerman, you misunderstand me. My comment was not meant to be in support of the media companies. I haven't bought anything from those people since 1981, because a little research convinced me that they were an overtly amoral operation that I couldn't, in good conscience, continue to support. They still are, and I still feel the same way. Most people don't even want to know who they're dealing when they buy their music, because then they might have to wonder where the cash from that last CD they bought actually went.
I just meant that it takes a certain degree of intestinal fortitude to keep doing what they do, for as long as they've been doing it, and not become violently ill from a sense of self-loathing.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Why would you need an anonymous network when you're only sharing files licensed under Creative Commons and the like?
Well, here's one good reason:
1. You've correctly realized that the media companies don't really care if you're sharing files legally or not.
I'm sure the rest of you can add to this list.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yes but in my life experience I have not found a correlation, but rather an inverse relationship, between "intestinal fortitude" and "capacity for cruelty". And I think this story supports my theory: All bullies are cowards.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Completely off topic... but I have always hated that phrase. I know plenty of people who "do" but don't actually "know" what they're doing... and plenty of people who "Don't" who teach... that DO know. The phrase always struck me a a snide comment against teachers, as though we are incapable of anything else so we teach. Many people who know what they're doing would make TERRIBLE teachers... which happens quite frequently in college. They are hired for their status and intellect for the college... but they don't know the first thing about teaching that knowledge.
Sorry, it's just that that phrase seems to carry a certain hubris that irritates me.
They may be 'stupid', 'insensitive', 'mean', 'cruel'. That is not 'ballsy'. Ballsy is those few people who have stood up these ghouls.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I find the cowardice suggestion highly unlikely. It makes absolutely no difference that Harvard has a law school. Yale's is arguably better. Sometimes you make strategic decisions in litigation. If there is one defendant who is going to fight very hard, and has let you know as much, sue the other defendants first and create precedent. Not suing Harvard now doesn't mean Harvard won't be sued.
Nobody in their right mind sues a lawyer assembly plant, coward or not ...
... especially when that assembly plant has over $35 billion in liquid assets. Doubly so when it also happens to be the stomping grounds of high-profile personal-rights lawyers like Alan Dershowitz. To keep this amount of money in perspective, the Presidents and Fellows of Harvard could decide to spend less than 3% of the endowment -- not even this year's interest -- and have ONE BILLION DOLLARS to keep the RIAA in court for the next handful of decades.
No, do not disturb the 350-year-old 800-lb gorilla who has lots of friends and big piles of cash.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I would even go an extra mile here.
Knowing how to TEACH is much more difficult than knowing the subject.
I have very poor teacher that knew a lot about the subject. I learned nothing from them.
I had great teacher that knew the subject well, but not lots. I learned a lot from them.
Anyone can know about any subject. All it takes is a book and some practice (to understand it). However, try and teach a bunch of teenager kids, and your views of teaching will change very fast.
Good teacher are a rarity. If you take a class of 100 CS students, you will probably end up with 50 or 60 good programmers, 2 or 3 exceptional programmers. If you can get 1 good teacher from those 100, you are in luck. In most cases, you don't get a single one.
morcego
That:
1) They know they're case(s) are weak
2) Their campaign is most certainly not about suing wrongdoers. It's about calculated methods to change copyright by case law.
Really this won't stop until someone with resources starts playing in their playground.
That is, attacks the xIAA for racketeering, price fixing, extortion, by way of the civil courts this is not likely to end soon.
The US legal system is simply broken. Our society treats corporations as equals, yet they are designed to pool capital. Anyone can sue, with little recourse, and if you have enough money, you can make it so the average man cannot possibly fight back. Meanwhile, all the time that you spend fighting the lawsuit, you find it very difficult to better your life in any other way, even save and/or invest.
And if you start talking about methods to put the system back in check... well then you are labeled a socialist or a communist. There has been legislation all throughout the preeminent authority's tenure on free market capitalism, but I dare you to start talking about Antitrust legislation now.
But I digresss...
And that's not a troll, exactly how?
How on earth did Creationists get categorically thrown into the same class of groups as the RIAA, Nazis, and patent lawyers?
I'm agnostic, but I know many Creationists who are just trying to find the world view that makes the best sense of their experiences, their reasoning, and various bits of historical evidence. I'm getting pissed that popular sentiment on /. is becoming that Creationists are a bunch of evil, ignorant bastards who are out to wreck the public teaching of science.
Creationism is a world view and a particular take on history, not a political practice. You might judge some Creationists to hold their views for bad reasons or insufficient evidence, but the same could be said of many reductionist evolutionists. But I know plenty of people smart, articulate reasons who understand the debate and have judged it more probable that creationism (not necessarily young-earth creationism) is the most-likely correct account of natural history.
Amongst 1st world nations, the USA is the only one that has a large portion believing in creationism. The rest of the developed world thinks of it as a joke.
I dare not pretend that I understand all the ins and outs of colleges and law but it would appear to me that more then just Harvard can get away from being targetted. If all colleges and universities were to stand united, perhaps law schools providing the legal front, against the RIAA and develope a system or group that is designed to protect students from this type of thing then maybe all these cases would drop. I'm just a junior in High School, when I go to college I dont want to have these types of issues to deal with. Instead of the universities giving in they should stand together and provide eachother with support. Surely there is strength in numbers.
I am a lowly high school student... please dont assume im an expert.
Do you have even the slightest idea what you're talking about? No? I thought not.
... always the same thing. ALL Americans are useless, stupid people that want nothing better than to watch their big-screen TV sets and take over the world.
The attitude that comes across from so many non-American posters on Slashdot is interesting. They feel perfectly free to lump ALL Americans into some arbitrary (usually negative) category, criticize us, and call us names (even though we built the largest industrial economy and military on the planet, not something usually accomplished by Flat Earthers.) On the other hand, if an American says anything remotely similar you take umbrage. ALL French are cowards. ALL British are stuck-up. ALL Arabs are terrorists. ALL {insert nationality here} are {insert favorite racial epithet here.} You can talk about Americans not being able to think for ourselves, but we're the ones with all the "intellectual property" that bootstrapped China and India into the industrial age.
Ten to one the Chinese aren't too interested in what your country has to offer, except maybe target practice. For your sakes, you'd better hope we don't collapse too soon, before you've had a chance to build up your own defenses. Russia and China are going to be on the world scene in a major way, sooner or later. Mark my words. When that happens, you'll be wondering why you were complaining so loudly about us.
If you had even bothered to read any of the posts left here by politically-aware Americans (and there are many) you'd find out that A LOT OF US OBJECT TO THE SAME THINGS YOU DO. But nope
You, sir, are an ignorant, hypocritical prick. Don't bother replying, I've wasted enough keystrokes for the evening.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.