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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.""
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.
Nobody in their right mind sues a lawyer assembly plant, coward or not.
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.
That's the comment I was looking for, seems pretty cut and dry to me.
Pushing around smaller and less reputable colleges and students may be fine and dandy...but trying to shove your weight around against Harvard is like lil timmy firing his peashooter at the deathstar, the RIAA would be decimated and a huge precedent would be set. Better to just leav'em be.
Trackball users will be first against the wall.
It is well worth trying out the Freenet p2p network. It is an anonymous distributed data storage system that is ideally suited to filesharing. I have been using it for the past few years and just recently it has got a lot faster and more usable. Music and movies are regularly shared and it can only take a few hours to get a full album. Speeds are slower than bittorrent etc., but that is to be expected - you never get something for nothing.
I would say that the RIAA is a white elephant
-1 not first post
As everyone knows (;-), Yale and Harvard are also primary competitors in their law schools, and Yale turns out about as many lawyers as Harvard. In fact, there have been some interesting studies done comparing the two schools, which have radically different teaching cultures in their law schools. The conclusion seems to be that both work quite well, and their graduates have roughly the same success rate after graduation.
...
So what's going on between the RIAA/MPAA and Yale? Does Yale's reputation as being the "nice" law school (if that's not an oxymoron) result in them being attacked more or less? Anyone have data?
Just curious
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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.
Actually, "NewYorkCountryLawyer" is the Slashdot ID of Ray Beckerman, attorney at Vandenberg & Feliu and long standing pain in ass of the RIAA. Charles Nesson and John Palfrey wrote the original Harvard response to the RIAA which was orignally covered at Information Week, then picked up by P2PNet and Ray Beckerman's own blog, amongst others.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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.
Everyone thinks it's just Harvard that isn't being touched. To the best of my knowledge (haven't checked recently, but I tried to find any instance of this about 6 months ago), they have yet to touch a single Berklee College of Music, or Julliard student/faculty member. I mean, it's not surprising. It would be pretty funny for the RIAA to have tried to sue John Mayer a few years ago (when he was attending Berklee) only to have some of their member companies trying to woo and sign him a few months later.
Then again, while music students have more music downloaded/shared in general than almost anyone else I know, they also actually purchase more music than anyone I know.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
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.
Actors and musicians also don't get paid for the time they actually spend doing most of the work--creating, rehearsing, making modifications, planning performances, and the like--you know, the kind of things YOU do at work while the money keeps rolling in before you finish. Artists, on the other hand, don't get paid until the work is done and rely on income for the performance. They get paid a lot because they get paid in lump sums. I am sorry but actors/actresses don't need to be paid millions for their roles in movies. But I bet you shop at stores run by corporations. Chances are you also work for one, contributing to their bottom line. Their executives make far more than most artists, even the very successful ones you so despise. Do you watch ESPN? Why do professional athletes get paid so much for so little. How about venture capitalists, lottery winners, and financial speculators who make huge amounts of money at once--but then make almost none for years?
Frankly, people like you who reduce an entire industry filled with legitimate artists, millions of middle-class employees, and hardworking entertainers who love what they do to the same level as some slimy fat cats in it are just as bad as the RIAA. By your logic, doctors are cheap hacks, too. You shouldn't pay your bill because you don't think they should charge so much or have unattractive offices. They don't deserve nice houses or things that you, Joe Armchair, would be jealous of. 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 Not educational enough, apparently. But you're right; there'd be plenty of income and jobs for everyone and a roaring economy if people just didn't pay for the things they didn't plan to buy. I mean, we wouldn't have enjoyed it if it weren't for the five-finger discount.
and from what I can tell
:)
1) most kids here are too busy with chairing their Model-UN-Investment-Banking-Labor-Movement meeting to even care about music, so they listen to a few cds and buy tracks from itunes (like many college campuses with high tuition, most kids have some hardware from apple) and hear most of their music on the loudspeakers at god-awful binge drinking parties
2) the few kids who listen to a lot of music are into indie bands, and the RIAA seems to go after folks who download more popular tunes. also there's pretty significant downloading/computer-illiteracy here (kids dont have the time to waste playing with the computer, and thus dont really understand where to get music illegally)
3) there's only like a couple hundred cs majors here, and there's only one out of that group with immaculate taste in music (me!) so I'm probably the only person at harvard that the RIAA could ever be angry at, but I don't download music.
There's nobody to sue!
Note to reader: The error bounds on this comprehensive study may be non-trivial.
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.
Hello. My name is Terrence "Mongo" Rennet, and I represent the American Council of Bullies, Toughs, and Schoolyard Ruffians. I'm here to clear up some tragic misconceptions about bullies and their place in the academic hierarchy, misconceptions that have gone unchallenged for too long. It is my hope that by "clearing the air," as it were, bullies and bullied can walk with head erect or cower behind lockers respectively with a newfound respect for one another.
Myth: Bullies are just jealous of your intelligence, sensitivity, or ability to play the oboe.
Fact: Bullies have no more jealousy of your mental abilities than we have of your clean, well-ironed, unfashionable clothing. To the contrary, we are profoundly glad that you have chosen to develop your mental prowess, leaving your body weak and defenseless against our brutality. For that we thank you, even as we elevate your underwear.
Myth: Bullies suffer from low self-esteem, and victimize others to make themselves feel better.
Fact: While each bully has his (or her, as is increasingly the case) own deeply personal reasons for bullying, I can assure you that a poor self-image is not one of them. To the contrary, bullying is a high-pressure occupation, and only someone with an unusual amount of self-confidence will have the elán to shake down younger students efficiently while evading authority. Children without self-confidence tend instead to spend recess in the library, the computer lab, or pretending to be warriors in ridiculous fantasy games. Sound familiar?
Myth: If you stand up to a bully, he will reveal himself to be a coward.
Fact: This is perhaps the most hurtful stereotype of them all, in the sense that if you try it we will hurt you. Endless movies and after-school specials depict a tormented victim finally working up the courage to attack his neighborhood bully, after which said bully runs away crying and -- I must chuckle here -- calling for his mommy. What writers of these "entertainments" don't realize is that bullies invariably establish a complex ritual pecking order through constant low-level violence against each other. Haven't you noticed us punching each other in the shoulder at the bus stop? Then you've witnessed the magic of our social structure. Even if you, with your weak, gelatin-like arms were able to do us physical harm, I can assure you that we would recover faster than you can recite your grade point average and teach you a few things about savage poundings you can't learn from Spider-Man comics.
With that thought, I take your leave, confident that I have, in my own small way, improved the world's understanding of the art and craft of bullying. Good day, and if I see you after school you're dead meat.
brunching.com
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