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RIAA Afraid of Harvard

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-aren't-we-all dept.

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.""

15 of 425 comments (clear)

  1. The reason is much simpler by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:The reason is much simpler by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Funny

      They have all the resources to take the RIAA's campaign down.

      That would make a good senior project: "Students, your assignment this year is to put the kibosh on the Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuit mill."

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  2. Cowards, maybe... by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nobody in their right mind sues a lawyer assembly plant, coward or not.

    1. Re:Cowards, maybe... by pz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
  3. Cowardly? Give me a break. by radicalskeptic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Cowardly? Give me a break. by NewYorkCountryLawyer · · Score: 5, Informative

      f 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? If you'd spent as much time as I have interacting with the people who are the victims of this litigation madness, I think you'd have a different take on it. This is really a very nasty campaign being run by some very nasty people. And the vast majority of its victims are defenseless people who don't deserve the anguish they are being put through.

      And the tactics the RIAA lawyers use are inexcusable.

      I've been in the litigation field for 34 years, and I've never seen anything like them.

      Question. You say "I'm as disgusted with the RIAA's tactics as anyone". If you're aware of their doctored non-evidence, their misstatements of fact, their misstatements of law, their abuse of the federal judicial system, and their inappropriate tactics... are you suggesting something like that is not "stuff that matters" or "news for nerds"?
      --
      Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
    2. Re:Cowardly? Give me a break. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Insightful
      If they believe suing Harvard students would hinder rather than help their cause, well is that really being "cowardly" or is it being smart?

      If they thought what they were doing was legitimate they'd take on Harvard too. Harvard gets sued all the time. Just not by people like this.

    3. Re:Cowardly? Give me a break. by NewYorkCountryLawyer · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you're aware of their doctored non-evidence, their misstatements of fact, their misstatements of law, their abuse of the federal judicial system, and their inappropriate tactics Sorry, I honestly was not aware that they doctored evidence and lied in court. Do you have any relevant links that give examples of their treachery? Sounds like a good Sunday afternoon read to me ;-) However, I still stand by my statement that calling the RIAA a coward for not suing Harvard is like calling me a coward because I won't pick a fight with Bas Ruten. I could spend the next 2 days giving you examples; my blog is replete with examples. Here are just a few.

      Here they were caught in a lie to the Judge; here the Judge figured out that they were lying about an "emergency" need to file their cases WITHOUT NOTICE to the other side; here we discuss the fact that even though their expert witness has admitted that their investigator did not "detect" an individual, the RIAA's lawyers continue to sign false court papers stating to the Court that their investigator "detected an individual"; here's a recent pack of those lies which they submitted, in an undefended case, where the Judge realized that their first presentation of evidence didn't point to an infringement by the defendant; here's that Judge, and here's the State Attorney General of Oregon, catching them in those lies; and here's the junk science put forth by their 'expert', whose real 'expertise' is getting LAN operators to fork over $76,000 at a time in protection money in order to make the RIAA and him go away.
      --
      Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
    4. Re:Cowardly? Give me a break. by earlymon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Hi Ray,

      Many thanks for your fine work in this area.

      I have an experience leading to a question. I was involved in a civil suit, the other side's attorney pulled shenanigans, lying to the court, etc. My lawyer was incensed, and it seemed the suit was going to drag on for years, so he offered to settle with me for my hoped-for amount out of his pocket provided I release him to sue the other attorney (he was going to make way more money that way, he was that confident). I was ok with that, so that's how it went down.

      From that, I learned that attorneys can be sued for shenanigans - malfeasance? - and that's my question(s). Could the RIAA be stopped that way? Attorneys are officers of the court, that makes them liable for malfeasance charges, doesn't it? If not in court, what about the Bar Association(s)? (All I know about the bar I learned on TV.....)

      Can't the attorneys be punished and thereby discourage those practices? Is our system so broken that the answer is really no?

      Thanks,
      Earl

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
  4. Harvard = death star by module0000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Harvard = death star by Dephex+Twin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Rumor has it there is a 2 meter wide desktop computer in the president's office, and if they can successfully sue that then the whole campus goes down.

      Many paralegals died to bring us this information.

      --

      If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
  5. Re:Elephant and Mouse situation by youthoftoday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would say that the RIAA is a white elephant

    --
    -1 not first post
  6. The Reason by phiz187 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  7. Re:No it's not by NewYorkCountryLawyer · · Score: 5, Informative

    The submitter of the story is Charles Nesson, who is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. See also Wikipedia. I'm not sure if you're confused or just being a karma whore with the links, but no, the submitter of the story is not Charles Nesson. It would appear to be Ray Beckerman. Or better still, Ray Beckerman. Guilty as charged.
    --
    Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
  8. I'm a senior at Harvard by ystar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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. :)