February 9, 2007
Time Out for Music Pirates
Students at the University of Oregon who get caught downloading music illegally now have plenty of time to think about what they have done: The university is temporarily revoking their Internet service.
The crackdown has caught many students off guard, as they could not immediately figure out why they could not log on to the Internet in the university residence halls. Some students find the punishment unfair. In fact, one student claims she only downloaded one song, and that she did it before she was even a student at the university. But, according to the Oregon Daily Emerald, the Recording Industry Association of America found out about the download and notified the university. --Dan Carnevale
Posted on Friday February 9, 2007 | Permalink |Comments
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Although the ethics and legality of file sharing can be debated, I’m deeply troubled by the tactics of the RIAA (and by relation, the MPAA). Not only are they clogging our legal system, they are now leaning on overworked campus IT staff to do their enforcing. The letters sent from the RIAA take seconds to fire off. Yet, to see the entire process through as described in the article consumes untold HOURS of IT staff time and resources, not to mention that of the students. Meanwhile, everyone in education suffers from the time diverted from productive endeavors. The chilling effects are troubling, and I only fear that more universities will choose or be pressured into such draconian tactics to appease the whims of an outdated industry that is face-to-face with the future of how people should be accessing content. Besides, I’m fairly confident that the student interviewed in the article simply backed up her downloaded music files to a CD or music player. I’m willing to bet also that the IT admin assumed as much, but didn’t care to push the issue any further. And rightfully so for both the student and the admin. So after all this, what has been gained by the RIAA?
— Concerned IT admin Feb 11, 09:44 AM #