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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."
... that they are shooting themselves in the foot. The more they annoy the Universities, the more likely they'll believe the effort and cost is too great. Hopefully they will then be forced to defend themselves.
I do hope they call the RIAA's bluff. What's happening now is modern-day extortion!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Perhaps because of the recent legal blows they've received in court they're trying to hasten their tactic. Maybe if they make it look like piracy is sky rocketing all of a sudden the legislators will hastily pass some laws to help them out. The courts are onto them, so the legislators might wise up next. If that happens the RIAA may be screwed.
Or perhaps I'm reading too far into this, meh.
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
Meaning, the RIAA can send a bunch of fraudulent notices, and then have added pressure on the overworked IT guys.
"Nice network youse gots here... pity if something should... HAPPEN... to it..."
MafiAA can rot in hell along with the assholes who put up red-light cameras and then drop the yellow light time below the state safety requirements to increase their ticket count.
If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
The actions of the RIAA are becoming increasingly desperate in my opinion. Taking a look at the utter failure of suing individuals for infringement, they are turning to these organizations where they can use pressure from the public to get their way.
Its time for the rest of the universities to step up and put and end to this extortion.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
"Death Throws?"
Calling all geeks, It's time to see kout and target these lawyers specifically as well as all RIAA management.
We need to TP their houses, put up banners on their homes proclaiming they HATE AMERICA, and let the air out of their tires on their cars.
Harmless prank them to the point they back off or stop. If a big time RIAA lawyer is the laughingstock of his neighborhood he will quit. Because lawyers hate it when they dont have someone to sue they will emotionally implode.
P.S. be sure to use organic Toilet paper and solvent free paint on your banners. A large number of harmless pranks over and over will drive them insane and will do the job.
Come on guys, get off your ass, and do some good for the world. Start fighting back.
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."
I'll be scribbling a note to my legislators today, and maybe another one to the Illinois Times, too. Oh yeah, the Trib and the St Louis Post Dispatch. Might be nice if someone would post a comprehensive list of states so other slashdotters can slashdot their congresscritters' email servers.
Why is it that we never heard about this crap in the Trib or the Post? Never ascribe to incompetence that which can be explained by malice.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Freedoms laid down by our bill of rights protect us all from such "draconian" attempts, such as the right to assemble peacefully. Given the state of Indiana University's near tranquility, I would have to say, that anything the students do there should fall under these rights. At what point could a company sue governmental institutions of higher learning, and have everyone turn a blind eye? Well, they passed their point. Their time is gone. Now, people see what the RIAA is doing. Imagine I drive onto a car lot, all of the sudden, 20 used car sales men try to jump me. They all claim that by bringing the car on their lot, that I provided access to an option that might be competitive to their cars. Now at this point, I haven't even said that I wanted a car, (I could be here to talk to my niece in accounting) rather, I've just stepped on the lot, and "made available" some other alternative than anything they could come up with. Now I'm getting sued for bringing an "alien" car onto the lot, but not to get it off of the lot. Instead, they're suing me to get me to buy another car that makes it so I can come onto their lot whenever I want. This isn't the best analogy I could come up with, but part of my soul is happier today, now that I've equated RIAA goons with used car sales men, in their pathetic attempt to blackmail government institutions into buying their product when their own customers won't even buy their product anymore. Furthermore, the music "industry" was the single worst idea of the 20th century. Top 40? was that the best they could come up with? I have to apologize to a whole group of great artists who got hit by that bullet, but the rest of "one hit wonders," can go back to b-movie pornos. Oh yeah, right here, this poster right here, NEVER BUYING ANOTHER CD, DVD, BLURAY, ONLINE MOVIE, ETC, EVER AGAIN. DON't FUCK WITH THESE UNITED STATES. SERIOUSLY.
The simplest explanation I have is that we're coming up on the end of the (US) college academic year. Most universities are just about to start finals week. If the "bounty hunters" are on commission, then it makes all the sense in the world that they'd want to get a batch of complaints in now, before the summer doldrums.
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Hey, and let's make laws that compel the phone companies to install deep conversation inspection equipment just in case all these criminals start talking about file sharing ...
innocent of the allegations, I expect that the RIAA will get a HUGE black over this. I hope those kids along with their colleges sue the shit out of the RIAA!
Help start up a public service: make sure to spread the word to every high school student you know, telling them exactly which schools are eavesdropping on all of their Internet traffic. Broadcast it via every means possible. Let them know that if they decide to attend that school, every IM conversation, every email, every website they visit while on campus will be scrutinized by the administration for possible "illegal behavior."
How many prospective college students are going to choose a university that is actively spying on them 24/7?
Maybe it is being already done, but why not just encrypt the info as it is being sent? It appears to me that the RIAA made a mistake blaming their lack of sales on pirating. Once they asserted the idea that pirating is equivalent to lost sales, they now feel compelled to defend their incredible position by becoming the bully. This tactic would only work if they could somehow show that by being a bully sales are returning to "normal." Of course they could have produced better music which would have boosted sales while being a bully and then they would have some circumstantial evidence that the decline of sales is related to pirating. Since they only wanted to bully and extort money from people who have no means of paying the high price they demand, they are not seeing sales jump.
insert inflammatory comment here!
1. I get a huge kick out of this Shel person quote. Since when is plain-speaking rewarded or even sanctioned in big-school politics? Shel must be planning to move onto a much smaller school.
2. Shel's got it right in the sense that public-ish universities like Berkeley are the softest target for the RIAA. It's the public money and accompanying political pressure the media conglomerates can easily exert that will win the RIAA another battle.
3. If the RIAA's behavior is so offensive, then what exactly will anyone do about it? You'll keep buying their movies, keep buying their media with rare exceptions, keep watching their entertainment spew on the rented cable/satellite device.
Bottom Line: The moral indignation is ridiculous. Grow a pair and stop consuming their products.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It seems to me that with the BROAD deffinition laid out in the Patriot Act for the term "Terrorist". What the RIAA is doing is not only Extortion but they could also be labeled "Terrorists" IMHO. Now that woudl have more "bite"! Ricco Act charges obviously mean nothing to them although they NEED to brought up those charges. But I think if they were charged as Educational Terrorists then MAYBE the government would bite them hard! Send all the RIAA management to Guantonimo!
I am suspicious of RIAA, not because of Music, but because the things they are pushing for only tangentially have anything to do with Music.
RIAA is supposed to be a watchdog for a "for profit" business/industry. OK, but all studies conclude that file sharers buy music more than those who do not. File sharing is the new way for people to discover new music. Its replacing the radio. Nothing RIAA is doing is actually helping the industry for which it is supposed to be working.
If one were to don their tin-foil hat, and look at a broader view, the motives of RIAA andd MPIAA.
It looks to me, more than protecting music or movies, the *IAAs are more politically motivated to disrupt the democratization of communication. Never before in human history has the ability to share and disseminate information been as easy and accessible. Almost anyone with access to a computer can share information with anyone else with a computer.
The politics of "real" democracy where corporations and governments can't control who says what to whom or what dirty secret is made public is terrifying to the powers that be. RIAA, MPIAA, et. al are making what can only be a desperate fictitious but plausible argument in an effort to shut down the internet. Comcast, in a similar vein, wants it to be more like cable TV where we pay to "read" the wire, and entities pay to "write" to the wire.
*IAA, politicians, and corporate america HATE the best part of the internet. They want it to be a controlled delivery system, not a free conduit of communication.
So, here is the plan as I see it:
1. Support legislation that requires deep packet monitoring.
2. Once that is passed, target those universities with tons of takedowns. Start now, so it doesn't seem as if they are ramping it up due to the law.
3. Make them install packet monitoring software.
4. Here is the interesting part. Doesn't their "star" IT witness provide this software and/or hardware?
5. Get kickbacks from star witness' company for the extra software they sell.
6. Start on the next state, using the existing state as "proof" of how bad it is, and how much "piracy" is being detected by the deep monitoring.
8. Profit on the kickbacks, plus any additional lawsuits.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
this corollary is getting more and more true by the day.
1) Lobby legislature to pass laws requiring deep packet inspection and content monitoring if a school receives a large number of take-down notices.
2) Engage in a junk mail campaign to send massive numbers of take-down notices.
3) Profit!!!
That was the previous step.
... well, it sounds like they're going to hurry things up - before the tactics they use are declared illegal.
They're so good at distracting the testosterone-filled youth who used to fight for real causes, so the government can get on with usurping control. In the '70s, activists fought for an end to a pointless war fought by drafted peers. In 2008, activists fight for the right to listen to music they haven't bought and no-one's forcing anyone to listen to.
The hobby horses of the moment seem to be RIAA and OOXML - and, again, the anti-Microsofties are missing the point entirely. Microsoft couldn't give two hoots whether OOXML is a standard - but what it does want to do is get everyone to lose faith in standards bodies.
Recalling the ruling by the Ninth Circuit recently that states enjoy sovereign immunity from copyright infringement suits, why don't the state colleges and universities extend their umbrella of protection to their students? For instance, what if they hired each student, for $1 a year, to be an "Associate Data Archivist"? Then, in the course of that employment, under the protection of sovereign immunity, each student would be empowered to review and collect any data relevant to his or her broad duties as archivist for the state's premier cultural and educational institutions?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Let it rip. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cc-top-universities/
Absolutely no sympathy here.
The RIAA motto: "What can we do wrong now..."
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
...the only stuff I'm downloading from the BBC. Seeing as I've already asked them to provide their content to aliens for a fee, and they refused, I'll cite "No damages" for my defense should I ever be prosecuted.
Who's still downloading music, anyways? There's been so very little music that's come out in the past 5 years that's actually worth listening to that you have no reason for not being able to afford buying the album. Besides, you would've thought that people have amassed enough music via downloads by now. Hell, I used to have 30+ days of music on my computer before I thinned it down, and now I still have an unwieldy 10 days of music....
Their actions may be legal, but I don't understand what they're trying to accomplish. It's true that I have completely ceased any unlawful downloads (that I ever, ahem, hypothetically performed). It's also true that I have completely ceased all lawful purchases of music. Why would I want to do business with an industry like this?
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Nope, it is more like a small group of owners fighting millions little thieves. Each one of them can only steal so little, each particular theft is laughable — especially when the little perp is placed next to the giant (and uber-rich) victim. But they are still wrong...
Don't even try to say: "nothing is stolen by copying," — that's quite ridiculous and self-inconsistent (thus automatically wrong).
If the Ten Commandments were a "living document", the "Thou shalt not violate copyrights" would've been found in it by now... It certainly is found there — by Slashdot participants anyway — whenever someone is found to have copied GPL code. Then we are all outrage — as if something were, indeed stolen.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
we read yesterday about the PRO-IP act passing the house judiciary committee. Maybe the RIAA is jumping the gun here and trying to get their suit on.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Not just the public universities--I work at a small liberal arts college and we've had a few dozen notices in the last few weeks, which constituted a definite spike.
like
University of Oregon,
Marshall University,
University of Maine Law School,
University of San Francisco Law School, and
Harvard University Law School.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I run a fairly large private university network and I have seen a big uptick in RIAA notices lately. Personally I think it has to do with them targeting end of semester/year for some reason.
However, the increased pressure on me to "do something" about it goes way up when higher ups start seeing 4-5x the amount of notices coming in. They panic because they are a private university and can't stand up to "the man" like these public ones do.
The bigger problem is that student IP's are NAT'ed so I get notices with our Internet facing NAT addresses, not a student IP or MAC, so there is no way to properly find the student responsible. It is a silly game being played with no winners, just a ton of headaches.
RIAA if you are listening, look into the concept of Network Address Translation, because it seems to me you don't get it. Better yet, offer me a software or hardware tool to place on my side, I'd be just as happy to gain back the wasted bandwidth as you would to extort these college kids over nothing.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
universities. After all, as we recently discussed on Slashdot, in a story also posted by Soulskill, they sued an ISP in Ireland for not using Doug Jacobson's "Audible Magic" software.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I suppose that they just really need more money to mount a defence against all the legal battles they are losing.
they took down napster, so file sharing became decentralized. now they go after identity via ip. so identity obfuscation is the next software step
anyone caught via ip identification is simply collateral damage that drives the development of the next cycle of cryptic clients. and also drives users to the next software cycle out of fear as well
so thank you riaa, for providing the motivation to develop battle-scarred, robust, secure identity-hiding file sharing
(rolls eyes)
you can't win this game, riaa morons. you just provide incentive to beat you. you really think your lawyers can defeat an army of tech savvy music hungry poor teenagers?
when you send a college kid into bankruptcy, you don't teach him a lesson. you don't teach anyone else a lesson. you just make people fear you. and that's not what law and order is based on: law enforcement doesn't work out of fear. law and orde ris based on ethics and morality. law enforcement works out of a necessity to teach respect for a moral and ethical position, to people who have no morals or ethics. law enforcement does NOT work by teaching moral and ethical people that fear is more important than morals and ethics. capisce? understand the difference you fucktards?
all you do when you sue a college kid for thousands, is you give him and anyone else aware of the fear-based punitive damage, incentive to beat you at your game of strong arm tactics. you think now he is going to buy a $15 cd? no! he's just going to use a russian proxy you stupid fucking twits
why doesn't he "fall in line"? because there is no moral or ethical validity to what you are doing. you don't create compliance, you create resentment, because there is no morality you are teaching with your violence. your tactics only work when there is a moral position behind them. THERE IS NONE
the money you leverage from music sales does not go to the artists. you give them pennies. those artists are better off financially putting out a tip jar and distributing for free and not getting involved with you parasites. all you are doing with the money you leverage from music sales is shore up a dead business model with your lawyer goons
you're a weed. you have no moral or ethical reason to exist. and so you are there to be vanquished and beaten. we must spray you with herbicide and yank up your roots as you howl until you are surely dead. listen up riaa: THE BUSINESS MODEL YOU PROTECT IS DEAD ALREADY. THE INTERNET KILLED IT. WAKE THE FUCK UP. MOVE ON
so bring on your legions of lawyers, you asswipes. you're going down. we welcome the fight. you can't win this game. you're too fuckign stupid not to see that you are on the losing end of progress
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
it's not their styles to pick on people who can fight back. And colleges and universities are people who can fight back.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"Deep packet inspection" is spying. Deep packet inspection is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT! You are basically looking at, reading, and logging copyrighted e-mails and copyrighted files, no matter what extensions those files end with, including .mp3. Fight fire with fire. These programs may also be violating the Patriot Act by "inspecting" sensitive or classified information.
.mp3 discussions on topics including your musings on pop_song.mp3 are copyrighted, including fair use excerpts in those files.
/. posts, etc.
Hear ye! Hear ye! Students reduce your tuition costs to ZERO! Get a free house paid for by your university when you graduate! Sue them for $150,000 per copyright infringement. Your emails, your papers, your
The thing is, if these "deep packet inspection" programs are legal, then they are legal for EVERYONE! And P2P programs are nothing more than "deep packet inspection" programs. Downloading and listening to files to determine whether they are copyright violations is LEGAL activity. I'm sure the NSA, CIA, DOJ will be thrilled to know that we as citizens can infiltrate their networks with "deep packet inspection" programs. Such progress will avoid future embarrassments such as the White House losing its emails as it's perfectly ok for private entities to inspect, log, and back up that information, in order to discern that the Government and RIAA are not violating your copyrighted material, including email writings,
So everybody, fire up those P2P applications and download/upload EVERYTHING, and then look at those files to make sure these entities like the RIAA are not violating your copyrights. Uploading is legal because you are merely enlisting assistance from your fellow citizens for the purpose of "deep packet inspection", which is LEGAL! "Deep packet inspection" programs are nothing more than wholesale uploading of files which do not belong to you, which may or may not be copyright violations. We can't be 100% sure until we download and look and listen. And our peers need to download and look and listen too, just in case we missed something.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
As a former IU student -- I graduated in December -- I must say that Indiana really doesn't do much to help the RIAA. They get a notice that you're pirating an insane amount of illegal music, they cut you off the network, tell you that you're infected with a virus, then ask you to format your computer. All you do is email them back in 24 hours, say you've complied, and they restore your access and go back to normal. They don't verify you've actually done this; they'll just take your word for it. This happened to me three times when I lived on campus freshman year, and probably 1/3rd of my dorm floor received similar notices throughout the year. The university will comply just enough to shut the RIAA up, but they won't go out of your way to make sure you're making every possible effort to listen to the RIAA. That's not their job. I'm glad big universities like IU aren't putting up with the MAFIAA's crap.
imeem.com
last.fm
spiralfrog.com
deezer.com
qtrax.com
And that's even before we get to the ones of questionable legality like muxtape and projectplaylist Yet p2p sharing of music is still huge, youtube and its clones seems to have made a big difference in the amount of movie sharing via p2p, why haven't the music sites done the same?
You and I might have no use for it, but it sounds just like music to some.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was a big time courier and distro at IU back in '98 before Operation Buccanner and I actually got a takedown notice from them my first week in school for running a pub FTP in #mp3 on Undernet. If it wasn't for another guy coming in with an @indiana.edu whois I would have never been cool and learned what was up!
Here is what I think the RIAA is up to and why:
The RIAA "knows" that there are thousands of students on the university's networks, and many of them may be sharing files "illegially." So, they say that they see a large amount of illegal traffic from the university's network, and the university then does the work to shut down file sharing. So, the RIAA accomplishes what they set out to do, and they didn't even have to get their hands dirty.
And if that doesn't work, then they subpoena IP addresses and other records so they can charge the students with a crime. The universities typically will comply (due to administration pressure) and turn the student information over to the RIAA. The students don't want a black mark on their record before starting their career, and the students don't have money to begin with (remember eating all those ramen noodles so you could buy books?), and the RIAA gets either a settlement or a conviction. Win-win for the RIAA.
So why doesn't that model work for the general public? Because the ISPs are much more protective of their information, willing to fight the RIAA to protect the privacy of their customers. They can't get the same information from major ISPs, or not as easily. Major ISPs take great pride in thumbing their noses at the RIAA, and in many instances, at the PATROIT Act.
So, it is survival of the fittest. Colleges and universites are easy targets, and the RIAA gets to add momentum with every settlement or conviction.
Huh, I read in our student newspaper last week that the university had received a bunch of notices from the RIAA recently.
They had the obligatory inane quote from some kid in student government (where do they find these people?) and said that due to the intense red tape associated with copyright procedures, it probably would grind to a halt. Whatever! It's nice to know that I didn't trigger it personally, I guess.
I was wondering why it seemed myself, two of my three roommates, and a bunch of my other friends had all gotten notices within a short time period. It looks like the RIAA is giving a nice hefty push, as if maybe that'll make them less crooked in the eyes of everyone with a brain and a sense of legitimacy. Yeah, I was downloading something I didn't buy. Yeah, it's illegal. I got caught. I got a written warning, had to take an online quiz on "Good Cybercitizenship", and have my computer scanned for illegal music. I wiped everything that wasn't legit, uninstalled my torrent client, and called it a day.
I'm glad my university (Penn State) is how it is about this. Basically, I lost my network connection for a few days and got a slap on the wrist, but there's definitely a cloud hanging over me about possibly committing the same crime again. Then the troubles really begins.
With all this said, I don't know what the RIAA is getting at. Perhaps 'legally' harassing the schools will cause them to change their minds and help you convict students who are already worth a negative dollar amount anyway? Sure, make some examples. It's worked so well so far.
is because they are losing the legal end of the war they started and are trying anything to not lose the rich lifestyle they have, at the expense of consumers and musicians.
well said. you are absolutely damned right, but the little thieving kiddies at slashdot cannot compute that taking stuff without paying is wrong, and are incapable of justifying their actions, so they will mod you troll and hope nobody reads it.
pathetic isn't it?
With all the goings on in the media lately about the RIAA; would this not be the equivalent of the swimmer who is drowning, flailing about in a last ditch effort of rescue?? Maybe this is a sign that the end of this nonsense is eminent.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Now, someone please correct me if I'm wrong here, but how is DPI going to help the RIAA? As long as people run encrypted Bittorrent connections, and most clients do, DPI won't tell them anything, right? How can you prove that I'm downloading music, not FOSS if my packets are encrypted?
Fear the penguin.
Might they simply have found a more efficient way to process their data? Or have started mining a new source, aside from Bittorrent and gnutella, that gets more traffic? Or have they gone back over their old records and pulled out records of actually copied items, instead of making available items, and are going after people in order of how many items they copied? (Since their making available bit was thrown out recently.)
SPAM!! :-)
Since the Russian Business Network moved out, and the Storm botnet subsided, there was nobody to uphold the core function of evil on the internet!
Else, how do spam fighting companies survive?
So, this noble beginning by the RIAA.
They're, in reality, good people, ya know
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
Wont do much if we all encrypt.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How about putting the spammers to good use and have them send out a billion fake takedown notices so that the ISPs will be overwhelmed and just start ignoring them, or the Bayesian filters will start filtering out the takedown notices so that people don't even get them.
Frankly, I'm surprised everyone is so pissed off.
First, people complain when the RIAA takes people to court, claiming, "We didn't get a cease and desist notice!", and so forth.
Furthermore, the vast majority of end users say, "I would quit media piracy if I received a cease and desist notice".
The RIAA notices this. They try to play by the rules that other people have set for them.
Now it's back to the wailing and gnashing of teeth, but instead the issue is that they're draconian and terrible and so on.
Read: this is RIAA's deliberate and now publicly documented attempt to commit state-level fraud: overnight they artificallly increase the number of notices, by an order of magnitude, in order to produce faux 'evidence' of the required X number of notices to state legislators. That's gotta be a Federal offence. Fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud, ought to be illegal, really, Oh wait, they already are! It's time the Justice Department stepped in.
"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."
OK. Being the practical person that I am, who's going to pay for it?
Who's going to pay for the time, materials, and personnel necessary
to accomplish this goal? The RIAA? The University? The civil service
branch that runs each university? The students?
The RIAA wants this, they want that, they don't want to PAY for the
information they claim they need. So what's the problem? If they, as
if they were a company, wants to see particular data collected, then
they, as a company, are required to PAY for it. And that includes,
among other things, the hardware and software necessary to collect
and coallate the information, the h/w & s/w necessary to handle the data
in whatever form is necessary, and the salaries of the folks involved in said
production. As well as the legal fees to protect all of the aforementioned
data from the various laws that prohibit the collection of said data.
In other words, the RIAA MUST be held accountable for the gathering
of the data, the consolidation of the data into a database (perhaps Oracle),
the fees associated with such an enterprise for each and every school of
learning for each state. Yes, we know there is much duplication of effort,
but each effort should be separate so as to not contaminate the data of each
institution of higher learning. Yes, the RIAA MUST PAY for all of it. And
be held financially and legally accountable for the data.
I wonder how much overhead this would bring to their request? Enough to
permanently discourage such a brazen act for a very long time? Enough for
all the result of the world to enjoy this great soap opera? Enough to show
the ruling party of the RIAA how stupid they appear to be? Or enough for
the legal entities of each state/school to ask "why are you prosecuting the
downloaders as opposed to the uploaders, the REAL crime-inducing folks?
Why are you wasting OUR time, OUR resources, and causing OUR reputations
to look as bad as yours?"
I wonder.