Massive Increase in RIAA Copyright Notices

According to Wired, universities in the US are experiencing a "20-fold increase" in the number of takedown notices from the RIAA in the last ten days. Indiana University reports 80 notices a day, but they say their traffic hasn't increased significantly over the same time period. It will be interesting to see if the affected schools join the legal battle against the RIAA, or cave under the increased pressure. "University of California at Berkeley's chief information officer Shel Waggener confirmed he'd heard of the spikes and suggested there was a political purpose driving them. 'Public universities are in a unique position since the industry puts pressure on us through state legislatures to try to impose what are widely considered to be draconian content monitoring measures and turn us into tech police forces in support of a specific industry,' Waggener said. The RIAA is also backing legislation in states such as Illinois and Tennessee that would require schools that get a certain number of notices to begin installing deep packet monitoring equipment on their internet and intranets, according to Luker."

Comments

Re:These may be what you call

[ryants]

Throes, dude, throes. http://dictionary.die.net/death%20throe

Re:These may be what you call

[Talderas]

"Death Throws?" It would be death throes.

However, yes, it does look like the RIAA is going on their last legs, but this is a very ballsy move they're making. If the legislative branch of governments starts making new/changing laws, then the actions the RIAA is taking could be perfectly fine, unless the courts could find a state or federal unconstitutionality with the law.