May 13, 2008
Educause Issues Statement on RIAA's Methods of Catching Music Pirates
Some college officials are raising questions about the methods used by the Recording Industry Association of America to identify music pirates on campuses. Many college leaders had believed that the group monitored and identified actual instances of campus downloading before sending out notices to colleges to remove song files from college networks, but in a memo it sent to members on Monday, the group said that the RIAA only identifies when a music file is being made available by a college user, not whether it was actually downloaded.
Officials from the RIAA confirmed that aspect of their investigation process during an exclusive briefing for Chronicle reporters held at the group’s headquarters on Friday. Details of the briefing are available today in a free Chronicle article. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Tuesday May 13, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Uh, I’m sure I’m missing something here. The file was “made available” but might not have been downloaded? (While we were away last weekend, we made our beer available but the kids didn’t use any.) Surely some of these people must have college-age children.
— Robert May 14, 08:54 AM #
Robert, The issue is a legal one. Making the file available is not copyright infringement, but copying it, or allowing it to be copied, is. So, the RIAA admits that it’s been looking for a legal activity and assuming an illegal one took place.
— CU Prof May 14, 09:25 AM #
It’s a simple case of ‘crimethink’. If a crime was made possible, it doesn’t matter to the RIAA whether it actually took place. And they can make universities hop (and spend big bucks) on that suspicion. Notice that they haven’t gone after Comcast in the same way, because Comcast could actually point this out without Rep. Berman going after them.
— Geoffrey Nathan May 14, 09:46 AM #
Agree with you both; but I have to ask whether this is indeed a legal issue.
We’re persuaded that no crime took place despite the ability to point to hundreds of thousands of instances where proof is imminently available. Are we in essence trying the case on a technicality rather than realizing there’s a problem and finding a way to fix it?
What if there was a way for RIAA or anyone else to license all the music used on a campus?
— Robert May 14, 12:04 PM #
Robert: The law is about violations—actual violations, not potential ones.
You ask: What if there was a way for RIAA or anyone else to license all the music used on a campus? Indeed, that’s exactly what would delight the hearts of the RIAA and media-providers everywhere, that every “use” of their music provide them with a fee (that they, of course, autonomously determine).
And they would just love fair use to be eliminated, in fact and in law. If we grant the right of RIAA to sue when there is prima facie some possibility of abuse, then we will have effectively abolished fair use.
— dionysos May 14, 12:37 PM #