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Duke Demands Proof of Infringement From RIAA
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "According to a report at p2pnet, Duke University has told the RIAA that it will no longer forward the RIAA's 'early settlement' letters to its students unless the RIAA submits 'evidence that someone actually downloaded from that student,' and said that 'if the RIAA can't prove that actual illegal behavior occurred, then we're not going to comply.' While it is good news that a university is requiring the RIAA to put up or shut up, the forwarding — or not forwarding — of letters is pretty insignificant. What I want to know is this: 'When the RIAA comes knocking with its Star Chamber, ex parte, 'John Doe' litigation to get the students' identities, is the University going to go to bat for the students and fight the litigation on the ground that it's based on zero evidence, and on the ground that the students weren't given prior notice and an opportunity to be heard?' Over 1,000 infringement notices were sent to Duke students in the last year."
The question is, why the hell didn't universites see the RIAA's challenges for what they were(bullshit) and begin to fight against the RIAA for their students much sooner? Last I checked, students pay the tuition, not the *AA's.
;)
Here's the top-25 universities which handed out copyright infringement notices during the 2006 - 2007 academic year.Note the geographic locations of the majority of the list.
1. Ohio University - 1,287
2. Purdue University - 1,068
3. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 1,002
4. University of Tennessee at Knoxville - 959
5. University of South Carolina - 914
6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst - 897
7. Michigan State University - 753
8. Howard University - 572
9. North Carolina State University - 550
10. University of Wisconsin at Madison - 513
11. University of South Florida - 490
12. Syracuse University - 488
13. Northern Illinois University - 487
14. University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire - 473
15. Boston University - 470
16. Northern Michigan University - 457
17. Kent State University - 424
18. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - 400
19. University of Texas at Austin - 371
20. North Dakota State University - 360
21. Indiana University - 353
22. Western Kentucky University - 353
23. Seton Hall University - 338
24. Arizona State University - 336
25. Marshall University - 331
From the 2008 list we see that the RIAA seem to be bolder, but the trend as before remains the same, for the most part. Texas Christian university? Thou shalt not steal
Duke now needs proof before taking action against students? When did this policy change? Did they inform the faculty?
For a minute there I thought this meant Duke Nukem Forever had been released, and it was about Duke fighting the RIAA in a court of law. Man, that would kick ass.
This might be better filed under fsckthatyoudontmakesense instead of suddenoutbreakofcommonsense
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Now, if only Duke could retroactively do this. I know one of the people at Duke who got bullied into paying the RIAA money last year. Being an international student, he felt he couldn't risk having a lawsuit on his record, so he paid a few thousand dollars, stressed out about it, and I do believe his grades suffered as a result. Duke has a Law school. Why doesn't it (and other similar schools) just make defending students against the RIAA part of the law school curriculum? Sounds like great practice, and it would do some good!
I prefer disarmament.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
let's hope this sends out a ripple of nerve to the other universities and more of them have the guts to stand up. If nothing else, this would skyrocket the administrative costs of these previously cheap mass shakedowns and hopefully put a stop to them.
FGD 135
Sure, Duke is bold now that NewYorkCountryLawyer and other lawyers stood their ground in a proverbial Battle of Thermopylae defending a bunch of homemakers and retirees against the RIAA army! While it certainly helps now, we needed the universities' collective might in 2005, not 2008, and perhaps a lot of people wouldn't have been put needlessly through the wringer!
How long before the dorms are nat'ed so the ip goes to a lot more then just 1 person?
When I hear about these RIAA letters-of-doom-death I always wondered, are the Universities even legally required to forward them to students? Why don't the Universities say, "no way, you deliver your own threat letters to people."
Um, dmcas....
hrm....
What constitutes solid evidence for illegal activity?
If there is no guideline for evidence for dmca violations I can't really comment on this.
If I was target of so many accusations I'd simply would somehow block my students from being able to host files somehow, even if its by simply blocking upload torrent traffic (or whatever other tool is accused of being used) from reaching the outside world at least for uploading.
I was mistaken, thought this was about Duke Nukem for some reason.
The university should have also stated that the evidence must come from investigators licensed in the state of North Carolina.
Finally we see that some folks are recognizing that all this copyright infringement cannot possibly be taking place. The Internet is just way, way too slow to allow anyone to download music. At least with the kind of dial-up connection I have and all that spam.
And why would anyone accuse a college student of doing something wrong? These are the finest examples of humanity that exist on the face of the earth and there is no way any of them could ever be involved with downloading music without paying for it. Right?
So what could the problem be?
Ray, you're obviously very well versed in all of this. Put aside the question of tactics used by the RIAA for a moment.
What do you think about people who are pirating music and/or movies? I looked on your website and found lots about the RIAA tactics, suing individuals, presenting evidence, etc., but nothing about whether you think music/movie piracy is right or wrong. Morally.
Do you think it's justifiable? Wrong? Slightly naughty but not a big deal? I'm really curious... I'm also curious about the legion of /. readers who spring to argument upon argument over any detail when this topic arises. Forget the question of tactics, of who's being mistakenly sued for an impossible amount of money, etc., etc. What do think about people who are pirating music and/or movies?
Duke has a very good Law department, i would hope that they are the ones that are going to : A) Advice the school administrators to not take the completely ridiculous claims made by the RIAA , B) Defend the university if (better yet, when) a law suit comes. But, as everyone knows, something more needs to be done against the enormous irrational power known as the RIAA, but as long as there are ignorant masses in this country who do not know the vast amount of unconstitutional acts the RIAA is doing then forever will they be a power.
Duke University Forever!
If they're anything like my dorms, every machine has an Internet-facing IP.
I mean seriously, how can you proof that someone at IP-Address X offered a file.
The typical way is that they show a screenshot of some programm as well as someone claiming under oath that it's real. Well let's see where someone evil could modify that information to blame someone else:
1. the application: It can display any IP-Address it wants, even random numbers
2. the video card driver: It gets commands to write strings. It's trivial to exchange strings here and most video card manufacturers refuse to provide the source for their drivers.
3. many routers can simply do some kind of "NAT" to change the address. This could be done, in principle for certain ports and fully transparent.
4. the operating system: Of course that's the easiest place for changing any information going into the application and going out of it.
5. the font: Yes, this is obscure and might be noticed, but if I make a font which makes 8s look like 1s and 1s look like 8s, It will seem as if there is a different IP-Address on the screen.
So, there is no possible way they can actually proof anything. Plus they have a motif to modify their system in one of those ways.
As long as we don't have true trustworthy computing, which would mean we have to cut down the software stack of our computers to less than a kilobyte, it's hard to proof anything with a computer. Should we get TGC-style trusted computing, there will be _no_ proof a computer has been modified.
that when I download the movie version of the comic version of the Themopylae inspired battle with Gerard Butler cast as NewYorkCountryLawyer and Jack Valenti as Xerxes that I'll get a John Doe leter?
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
... is this: The RIAA have been proven to break the law as a matter of principle, isn't that correct? If I do that, I end up in jail pretty soon; so why are they not only allowed to go free, but also to continue exactly as if nothing has changed? There ought to be a way for a judge to simply close down a business that repeatedly ignores the law like that. Or slap them with a fine big enough to take them all the way to bankruptcy. And then throw the managers in jail.
You have the right to download and upload what-ever you want without getting spied on (unless there is strong reasons to do it like suspected crime), and it's no crime to share information! It's one thing to publish something, but peer-to-peer sharing can't be outlawed. I really doubt that there actually is any law forbidding downloading, and if there is, it's not valid.
You have to remember that judges are humans too, and public opinions matter a lot on how the laws are interpreted, so you can do something about that USA is sinking into the dark age of the Internet.
Universities tend to have lots and lots of public IPs to throw around. Mine (Penn State) does, at any rate.
All these universities are wealthy. Why don't they band together to form a serious defense fund? They probably aren't fighting them serious now because of the potential cost of being a public show trial. But if all the major unis pooled together, they could each contribute very little (by their standards) but form a walloping defense fund.
expandfairuse.org
It looks like sometime since Duke settled with the wrongly accused rugby players, it has changed its legal MO to defending and supporting its students.
I have no doubt that turning on future alumni and trashing them without proof is bad for Duke's business.
at first i assumed that Duke ment Duke Nukem, and was rather confused...
Duke Nukem wants none of your bullshit, RIAA!
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
I'm surprised Duke is actually doing the right thing here. Based on their track record, I expected the students to be expelled, their sports team disbanded, the coach fired and have full page ads run in local papers signed by their professors denouncing them. I mean, that's what happened the last time Duke students were accused of something based on flimsy evidence.
I guess Duke learned the expensive way that their students don't check all their rights at the door when the are admitted to Duke.
And if anyone's smart enough, they've dropped their own router on that line to help obscure everything.
"Yea, my router has that IP Address, but there's over four hardwired computers and six laptops connected to it. You got a MAC address identifying which computer was doing what? No, my router doesn't keep logs. No, I will not turn logs on, you cannot tell me what to do with my legally-purchased hardware."
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
prior notice and an opportunity to be heard
Sounds like what you'd get if they were using a search warrant IMHO. You don't get an opportunity to defend yourself until they bring suit/charges against you. They are "just looking" so the right to counsel etc isn't really defended as much as once they actually accuse you of something.
This reminds me how poorly the Duke administration and faculty performed with respect to its students' civil rights in the lacrosse team affair. If I had a child enrolled there, with a $50,750 bill (2008-9), I would expect more careful, more effective support from the administration to fulfill the loco in parentis role.
Ahh, yes. I see. Many of them are at the university.
They should also demand that they don't just download .5% from the student either. They should demonstrate that they actually got a working copy of the song from that individual student.
What is the legal age of majority in the US ? In the UK it is 18, and nobody (other than prodigies) attends university before the age of 18. So the university is not responsible for any parental role.
is the University going to go to bat for the students and fight the litigation on the ground that it's based on zero evidence, and on the ground that the students weren't given prior notice and an opportunity to be heard?
The thing is, the RIAA doesn't really want to sue people. They want people to roll over and pay the $3000. That's almost entirely free money - they pay some small amount per IP to their dogs at MediaSentry, they pay some paralegal to fill in blanks on a form letter, and they pay some postage in order to send them out. Then they just wait until the money starts rolling in. A 10:1 profit margin wouldn't seem unreasonable, even if you factor in the supposed "losses" due to online sharing.
But every time someone fights back, whether it's against the RIAA's ex parte tactics or in a full-blown lawsuit, it costs them big. There are real lawyers getting paid real money to litigate real suits. Any returns are years off, and it's a roll of the dice as to whether they'll see anything for their efforts besides a bill from the defendant's lawyers.
The only reason that the RIAA files these lawsuits is because a few people have called their bluff. Imagine if the mob decided that breaking people's kneecaps was too risky/costly. Once people found out, nobody would pay them the protection money. Very similar situation with the RIAA: if the RIAA started ignoring people who ignored their settlement letters, and other people found out about it, then nobody would pony up the $3000. (Which, of course, is why these articles usually get tagged "mafiaa".)
By not forwarding the settlement letters, Duke complicates the cash cow portion of this formula. Ostensibly, the RIAA could find some way around this, but it'll undoubtedly be more complicated and cut into their settlement revenues. At some point, there's a line at which any hoped-for decrease in sharing is more than offset by the increase in pre- and litigation costs, and once the RIAA actually realizes that, their litigation campaign will stop. While many of us believe that the RIAA has been past that line the whole time, it'll take a lot more people fighting back to convince the RIAA of that.
Oh, and a ruling on unconstitutionally high damages favorable to the public interest wouldn't hurt, either.
Somethings are still 21, e.g. serving and consuming alcohol, sex in some circumstances, some kinds of guns, and misc other laws and licensing. 16 and 17 year olds are not as rare as you may think in the elite universities and colleges. I knew a fair number and it seems even more common today. Elite private schools can more easily consider accelerated admissions than many state schools that legally require graduation for matriculation whereas a private school can say 4.0, SAT 700s and calculus at 14-16, AP Scholar with some distinction, great extracurriculars and recommnedations etc sound close enough, never mind the HS graduation part. Skipping (multiple) grades has always waxed and waned with different decades in the US. Also part time students may be seen as young as 12-14 y.o. on many local college campuses.
While that may be the case, it's usually the parents that are footing the bill for the university education. So while they may legally have little input, when daddy gets upset over something and stops sending checks, junior quickly picks up on that
Assuming that law students who had themselves/fellows screwed by RIAA will not join the RIAA team, RIAA will be out of lawyers. The next generation will have a world without RIAA.
My small private Alma matter did much of the same. The RIAA came after two students, roommates. Our school did not assign ports nor track who used them and as there were two in the room couldn't tell who was doing what. Told the RIAA to shove it they wouldn't release the names of the potential downloaders.
..just turn off the music...
The price we must pay to put the RIAA out of business.
Not all are like that though. Mine are completely restricted from the world with everything going through a proxy. It's very annoying because almost every outgoing port known to man is cut off, although it's not especially hard to get around. Now if you connected to my uni's VPN, then you'd have a publicly facing ip, but a non-static one, although I wouldn't be surprised to there being logs somewhere of who, when and which though.
Who need's speling and grammar?
My guess is that RIAA is carefully choosing the states in which it litigates so as to minimize the probability that it will get stuck with an unfavorable precedent. It might also have to do with the states' rules for licensing the contractors which do RIAA's investigations (not that they've been that careful in the past).
BTW, thanks for the interesting data.
As of last year, University of Massachusetts completely complied with the RIAA. I believe there is an exact copy of the letter I received in my journal, essentially saying "You pay the bills, and we will sell you out. Have a nice day." This does prompt me to actually check with the administration and see how they feel on the issue. Here comes another ignored email!
Something witty.
John Wayne?
The Duke of York (Prince Andrew)
The Duke of Edinburgh (Queen Elizabeths husband)
The Duke of Wellington (Led the British army against Napoleon)
Duke Leto Atriedes (father of Paul (Mud'dib))
or
Duke Nukem forever
It would be nice if this stated just what level of "evidence" is required.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Filesharing is nothing more or less than Civil Disobedience against a law that has gone beyond unConstitutional (copyright is specifically defined in the United States Constitution) despite the Supreme Court recently allowing Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act to stand. Current copyright law has completely stolen the Public Domain, which can only be reclaimed by amending the laws back to reasonable again through Congress (fat chance!), a constitutional amendment defining exactly what a "limited" term actually means, or the outright destruction of Big Music since now any even reasonably competent band can record, produce, and distribute their music outside of the traditional channels for a tiny investment in hardware and software.
Now isn't Civil Disobedience also Protected Speech?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Well, you already have room mates who share PCs. So we're pretty much already there in terms of not knowing who the actual infringer was.
And yet the RIAA still likes to claim that they have detected a "person" doing unauthorized things with copyrighted files...
Is the University going to go to bat for the students and fight the litigation on the ground that it's based on zero evidence
Yes, only grabbing a portion of the sentence. Personally, I wouldn't bet on Duke helping fight the litigation (unless they've learned after the Lacrosse deal a couple of years ago and the current lawsuit they're fighting).
So the Duke administration demands proof of downloading but accepts rape accusations at face value? Nice priorities.
Duke is going to get stomped. They are an accident waiting to happen.
I'm sure they will be able to soon.
---- Watch out for snakes!