MIT Student Plans to Take on RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "MIT's online newspaper, The Tech, reports that a student named as a John Doe by the RIAA is planning to fight back against their questionable legal tactics. The anonymous student told The Tech that he is 'the victim of a fishing expedition by the RIAA,' and is 'disappointed that MIT isn't going to step up ... Other schools like Boston University and the University of Oregon have resisted RIAA subpoenas of student records more actively than MIT has, he said'. Maybe his attorneys will be able to get some assistance from some of the Harvard Law School students in Professor Nesson's 'Evidence' class, who have been assigned — as part of their coursework — the drafting of a motion to quash an RIAA subpoena."

Comments

Re:He'd best make sure he saved his receipts

[Free_Meson]

Unless they can link his specific IP to his computer that he specifically downloaded files he can use several excuses, not to mention he can probably get the EFF on his side who have very good lawyers to stop this kind of thing.

MIT has a class-A subnet (18.*.*.*) and used to give each student their own static IP address. If they still do that, it may be the easiest place for the *AA's to gather evidence. MIT may not "resist" as other campuses have for the reason that every student using P2P on their network is easily identifiable to the outside world.

Re:Wrong wrong wrong wrong

[s20451]

Committing copyright violation is not theft.

But it is illegal.

Re:Guilty till proven innocent?

[Mitreya]

Given the RIAA guilty until proven innocent "John Doe" should be able to present what could be a landmark case against the RIAA. Though IANAL sticking to that basic premise would seem to be the most effective way to nullify the MAFIAA.

Bah, few people here are lawyers, but even a layman like me has learned that RIAA files civil lawsuits. In a civil lawsuit there is no "guilty until proven innocent" or "innocent until proven guilty". The burden of proof is to show 51% likelihood of one party being right (kinda like a speeding ticket decision made by a judge. There's no assumption you're innocent, he goes by who seems more credible).

Re:He'd best make sure he saved his receipts

[b.emile]

The RIAA was originally created to make sure everyone's vinyl would play correctly. It's called the RIAA curve, created to keep RCA from equalizing differently than Columbia, so your records would sound good. It also oversaw later electronic recording formats. It was only later that it became a sort of union, and then, even later, a sort of police organization, as you stated.

Recording Industry vs The People

[CodeBuster]

He should definitely let his counsel know about Recording Industry vs The People which is a wonderful source of briefs, documents from related cases, decisions, and other strategies and tactics used by others defending cases against the RIAA and the music labels. Perhaps NewYorkCountryLawyer or his firm can help him out if can scrape together a few bucks to pay their fees.