April 14, 2008
New Batch of RIAA 'Settlement' Letters Sent to Campuses May Be Biggest Yet
The Recording Industry Association of America late last week fired off 569 “pre-litigation settlement letters” to university students whom it suspected of pirating music. It appears to be the largest batch of letters sent since the RIAA launched an expanded campaign in February 2007.
Most previous waves of letters targeted around 400 students each, according to press releases on the RIAA’s site. Students who receive such letters are identified after investigators hired by the RIAA download music available on the students’ computers, RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said. Whether making a song “available” constitutes copyright infringement has been questioned in several recent court decisions.
Upon receiving the letters, students have the option of paying the RIAA several thousand dollars to avoid going to court and potentially facing higher penalties. Mr. Lamy said the latest wave of letters was unrelated to bills in Congress that would revamp copyright infringement penalties and university requirements for curbing on-campus file-sharing.
Twenty-six institutions received letters last week. Here’s a full count of the letters each institution received, courtesy of RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth:
University of Texas at Austin, 75
University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 74
University of Washington, 36
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 35
Iowa State University, 32
Central Michigan University, 31
Columbia University, 26
University of Georgia, 26
Yale University, 26
University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 22
Cornell University, 21
University of California at Davis, 20
Drexel University, 19
Florida State University, 18
University of California at Santa Barbara, 18
University of Pennsylvania, 18
University of New Mexico, 15
Duke University, 14
University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, 12
University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, 9
University of California at Merced, 8
University of Wisconsin at Madison, 6
University of Wisconsin-Stout, 5
University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, 1
University of Wisconsin-Parkside, 1
University of Wisconsin at River Falls, 1
Officials from several universities not on this list have also recently reported sizable increases in the number of letters they’ve received.—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Monday April 14, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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When are people gonna stand up to these people this is a disgrace 5000 dollors+ for a lousey mp3 this needs to be addressed now and these mafia clampets put out of buisness
DO NOT LET THESE PEOPLE TREAT OUR CHILDREN LIKE THIS !
— toker Apr 14, 04:50 PM #
Perhaps “our children” should be learning a little about copyright law in college. These “children” are adults and are responsible for their actions. Unless and until the copyright laws are changed, they are infringing on legal copyrights and subject to the consequences.
— David Apr 14, 06:42 PM #
I don’t disagree that students should have a better understanding of copyright law and its implications. But students often come to campus with habits they have formed based on an environment without enforcement and parents/teachers who don’t understand the issues of copyright and filesharing. When students arrive at campus without effective education about copyright, they naturally assume their habits not knowing they are under the magnifying glass of the RIAA. If the RIAA enforced copyright on residential networks as strongly as they do on campuses and coupled that with an education campaign at the k12 level, the problem would be greatly reduced. They would make even more progress if they would develop business models that embrace the digital reality.
— Ray Apr 14, 07:34 PM #
There is a serious difference between the value of an mp3 and the amount the RIAA is suing people for. Nobody should be held responsible for the distribution of the files unless it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that that individual knowingly provided the very first copy of the unauthorized work. Otherwise, the math doesn’t work. If 1,000 people share the same one file and the RIAA are awarded lets say $750 per song, they just made 750,000 off of 1,000 copies of said song. They would have otherwise gotten these songs for 0.70 per song or $700. and at what they charged Ms. Thomas $9,200 per song, you are looking at $9,200,000 for a single song from 1,000 people. Now, if each of those 1,000 people had a 1,000 song library (not too far-fetched), you are looking at $9,200,000,000 for their combined libraries. I’m not sure if 1,000 copies of Toxic is worth over 9 million bucks. If so, maybe I should start making crappy music too. If, as the EFF states, over 60,000,000 people in the states have used file sharing and for the sake of accounting for people with small amounts of downloads, I’ll assume 100 songs were shared on every persons p2p software unless they knew to implicitly deny sharing. 60,000,000 people x 100 songs a piece x 9,200 per song is 55,200,000,000,000. I’m not sure about you, but somehow these numbers don’t seem to match the amount they are losing.
If this is considered copyright infringement (which I feel is outside of the original intent of the law), then I feel a person should only be held accountable for the full cost if it can be proven that that individual was the original source of that file in the p2p environment. Otherwise, the cost of the file at 0.70 seems a reasonable fine if it can be proven that that file was available to be downloaded, but it was unclear if that person was the original source of said file.
If one student has been forced to give up his/her life aspirations because of an inability to pay for college because of the greed of this organization, then shame on them and shame on anyone who does not sympathize with the true victims here. The college students who are supposed to be the future of our country.
Now, the real question I have is how much of their business was lost because of p2p and how much was lost to indy labels or to boycotts of them because of their terrible handling of the p2p situation.
— - Annon Apr 15, 01:04 PM #
Further to Annon’s question, how much of their business was lost because CD’s are just old technology. The CD is now as old as the LP was when folks stopped buying them. That’s where the revenue loss is actually coming from, IMHO. But the RIAA has Congress on their side, banging college students (and virtually nobody else) over the head with their (occasionally) falsified (or at least questionable) figures. As many of us keep saying, the business model is broken, but they haven’t noticed yet. Or are in denial.
— Geoffrey Nathan Apr 15, 03:34 PM #
My original thought was not so much about the habits of college students before coming to college. It was simply that these are adults who are responsible for knowing when they are breaking the law, regardless of what they may not have learned previously. I agree that better education and business models are necessary, but for now, the law is the law, until it’s changed.
My original thought certainly had nothing whatever to do with math working. It’s impossible for me to “sympathize with the true victims” when I believe most of them KNOW, on some level, that what they are doing is illegal. I’m 59 years old, never downloaded a single byte of music, and I know it’s illegal.
— David Apr 15, 06:59 PM #
Nobody cried when milkmen lost their jobs because of refrigerators… Apple’s success shows there is a market for online music, but RIAA can’t handle the idea of not controlling everything. RIAA and MPAA are in for a world of trouble by trying to stop technology. I don’t care who you are, but you won’t outsmart the combined intellects of the world’s computer nerds with free time.
— Brendan Apr 16, 05:27 PM #
David. There is a difference between illegal and unauthorized.
Downloading is not illegal. Merely not authorized by a non-legally binding entity. It is the uploading that is in question. The actual distribution is what is of concern in these cases. Downloading is not stealing. That is not even a question these days. The problem is most of the applications in question, by default, force you to share the files that you download and this brings up questions of copyright infringement. You can usually disable this sharing behavior in these applications, but most people don’t know how, because they are not tech-savvy.
My math question was merely pointing out the horrendously unconstitutional nature of our current copyright laws if used without proving actual unauthorized distribution took place and letting everyone realize that not everyone distributing a file should be left holding the brunt of the ‘damages’. Only someone who absolutely, beyond a reasonable doubt, was the original uploader of the first instance of a given song or video on a p2p application should be considered a possible target for litigation if the damages are calculated for copyright distribution violations. If damages are calculated “per person”, they should be held liable for the files that it can be proven that they distributed for the value of said song (around $0.70 fair market value). For instance, if someone has 200 songs on there machine and it can be proven that at some point someone that file made it into the hands of an unauthorized downloader (unauthorized downloaders are people who were not hired by the trade groups or for litigation sake or are not there for the purpose of ‘trolling’ the p2p networks [In other words, if someone is downloading a file to prove someone downloaded a file, that cannot count]), they could be charged ($0.70) for that file one time.
That being said, these lawsuits are a terrible idea for the RIAA and other such groups. What they should be doing instead of paying the lawyers to sue these people and sending out unreasonable extortion letters is to pay application developers to develop low bandwidth free p2p applications that are superior to the ones that are littering the market and associate all of their albums with online ticket, movie, memorabilia and music stores and advertisement to further the sale of their intellectual property using free p2p as a PR, sales and advertising mechanism. (Perhaps they could even offer a premium direct stream option to get files to people quicker than standard p2p as a paid for version)
I have not had the desire to purchase a cd since I last used a p2p application. I was an impulse cd purchaser when I was a downloader. Buying at least one or two cds a week. Downloading generated interest in music for me. I went to shows, bought t-shirts and cds…. Now, I have the cds I bought back then and my old t-shirts, but I don’t really listen to music anymore. I watch movies, buy gadgets and go out to dinner instead.
It’s time for the RIAA to take a different path and for our college students to return to school. After all, who will be their lawyers in the future if kids can’t get a good education. They need to stop suing students.
— - Annon Apr 17, 05:28 PM #
I’ll let the following article speak for me:
http://www.techspot.com/news/29220-riaa-not-sharing-settlement-money-with-artists.html
— Anon Apr 23, 01:42 AM #
Radio Head recently released InRainbows in stores and it went to the top of the charts. This was AFTER they released it ONLINE and let people pay whatever they wanted. INCLUDING NOTHING!!! The record companies and artists are already richer than must of us can ever imagine being, why do those money grubbing, vultures need more?
— Anon Apr 23, 11:18 AM #