Marshall University Challenges RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia, has become just the second US college or university to show the moxie to stand up for its students instead of instantly caving in to RIAA extortion. In February, Marshall, represented by the Attorney General of the State of West Virginia, made a motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena for student identities, pointing out in exquisite detail in its long-time IT guy's affidavit (PDF) the impossibility of identifying copyright 'infringers' based on the RIAA's meager evidence. Unfortunately, the Magistrate — under the mistaken impression that the RIAA isn't going to sue the identified students, but merely wants to talk to them — recommended that the subpoena be okayed by the District Judge (PDF). It is not yet known whether Marshall will be filing objections. The first US college or university known to have attacked the RIAA's subpoena was the University of Oregon, which — also represented by its state's Attorney General — made a motion to quash last November, and even questioned the legality of the RIAA's methods. The Oregon motion is still pending."

Comments

Re:Hunh?

[corsec67]

Who says that an IP address can even be related to a specific computer, much less a person?

All the university would know is that something with a specific MAC address was using that IP at that specific time.

Since MAC addresses are spoofable, how can they be related to a specific person at all?

This is a shake down

[DrLang21]

There is no way that the Magistrate actually believes that the RIAA does not intend to sue these students. No reasonable individual could possibly look at the recent history and believe that they had any intentions other than to demand a large settlement or to sue for even larger damage claims. If the Magistrate believes otherwise, their ability to perform their job should be brought into question.