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Same as having buying a home with a jetted tub — it’s nice to have, but we hardly use it. When we were looking at houses a couple months ago, the realtor kept bragging about the damn jetted tub. I finally asked her if she had one. She said yes. How often she or anyone in her family used it? Almost never, she admitted. Ugh! --Nokeke
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September 4, 2008
A Cat-and-Mouse Tale of Textbook Piracy Continues
A college student out there somewhere on the Internet has been facing off against textbook publishers in recent months, with both sides claiming the moral high ground in the latest phase of illegal file sharing on campus.
The student calls himself Geekman (he refuses to give his real name or location for fear of legal action against him), and he runs a directory of online books called Textbook Torrents. Ever since The Chronicle first wrote about the site, publishers have taken steps to enforce their copyrights and keep the site from encouraging the trading of their books.
A representative from a publisher contacted the Internet service hosting the Textbook Torrents site and demanded its removal for violating copyright law, and in response the hosting company shut down the site, said Geekman, in an e-mail interview. That was in late July, and it looked like a clean victory for the publishers, who say the site is encouraging theft, pure and simple. But Textbook Torrents was back online a few days later, on a different Web-hosting company, and Geekman posted a taunting message on the Web site that he couldn’t be stopped that easily.
The site is only one of many similar Web sites promising free books for download—making the owners of the sites some income from Web advertisements sold there. But Textbook Torrents is clearly in publishers’ crosshairs.
Peter Anaman, senior Internet investigations manager for Covington & Burling, which has been hired by the Association of American Publishers to look for book piracy, said the investigators had tracked the origin of the site and were taking action. “I don’t think he will last very long,” said Mr. Anaman about Geekman. “He’s probably not going to last more than 48-hours.”
And soon after, the site was taken down again.
But Geekman put it back up somewhere else. And in recent days, the latest company hosting the Textbook Torrent Web site, which is located in Amsterdam, removed most of the site (the discussion forums on the site remain active).
“The resounding success of the site speaks volumes about the validity of our opinions, something which the publishers would do well to heed,” said Geekman, in an e-mail interview today. “Of course, their reaction will be the predictable brute-force approach which completely fails to get the point. We plan to be around for longer than 48 hours.”
He said the whole site will be back online by the end of the week. “We’re currently making preparations for a more permanent setup,” he said.
Meanwhile, there are more signs that students are looking online for free pirated copies of books. And some publishers report fewer sales of new books this year.—Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Thursday September 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [16]August 28, 2008
Colleges Send Polite E-Mail Messages to Students Trading Files Online
The University of Michigan has developed a system that detects users who are swapping files on peer-to-peer networks and automatically e-mails them a notice of the activity. The system, called “Be Aware You’re Uploading,” doesn’t stop the file trading, which in many cases constitutes illegally swapping pirated music or movies. Instead the e-mail notice contains “educational information” about illegal file sharing, according to the program’s Web page.
Aside from delivering a daily dose of guilt to those who are pirating music intentionally, the system lets less tech-savvy students who are swapping music unintentionally know about it. Some software automatically dishes out a user’s music library without their knowledge.
Ars Technica reports that Northwestern University started the same service on its campus this week, and that the University of Michigan is encouraging other campuses to use their software and materials to follow suit.—Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Thursday August 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [24]August 12, 2008
Music-Piracy Sleuths Are Illegal Private Eyes, College Complains
More colleges are bucking back against the music industry’s anti-piracy campaign. Central Michigan University last week filed a complaint against the industry’s investigators, charging that they were acting as unlicensed private eyes in violation of Michigan state laws, according to the Saginaw News.
As The Chronicle reports this week, other colleges have tried different tactics recently in attempts to resist identifying students for the industry, which then threatens to sue the students. The software used by the industry reports only the numerical Internet address of an alleged music pirate, not the name of the person assigned that address by a college or other Internet-service provider.
Central Michigan’s complaint, filed with the state Department of Labor and Economic Growth by the office of the university counsel, is against MediaSentry, the company used by the Recording Industry Association of America to identify students who may have illegally downloaded music. The university asked the company to cease and desist until it gets a proper private investigator’s license in Michigan.
The university said it took the action to safeguard student privacy. Other colleges, also invoking student privacy, have tried to resist subpoenas asking for student names. The subpoenas were generated by MediaSentry investigations. A judge has ruled against colleges using this tactic, as this week’s Chronicle article details. Perhaps Central Michigan thinks that moving against the investigators, rather than the products of their investigations, will be more effective. —Josh Fischman
Posted on Tuesday August 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [5]August 4, 2008
A New Trial for Jammie Thomas?
One of the Recording Industry Association of America’s most symbolically important legal victories—its first and only win over a piracy suspect in a jury trial—is on the line today in a Minnesota courtroom, according to Wired‘s Threat Level blog.
Ten months ago a Duluth jury ordered alleged song swapper Jammie Thomas to pay $222,000 for sharing 24 copyrighted songs. The victory legitimized the RIAA’s legal strategy of pursuing individual file-sharing suspects, and it seemed likely to dissuade some other defendants from bringing their cases to court.
But in May, Michael Davis, the district-court judge who heard the civil case, raised the possibility of a mistrial. Mr. Davis said he may have erred in telling the jury that Ms. Thomas was liable for copyright infringement as long as she was “making copyrighted sound recordings available” on KaZaA, no matter if the RIAA could prove that other network users had actually downloaded any of the tunes. That instruction appears to conflict with a binding precedent from the same court, so Mr. Davis called today’s hearing to examine whether the case should be reheard.
For the RIAA, today’s hearing is about a lot more than just the $222,000 owed by Ms. Thomas. The trade group can seldom, if ever, furnish proof that particular songs have been downloaded illegally, so it certainly hopes that the standard of proof lies where Mr. Davis initially told the jury it did.—Brock Read
July 31, 2008
Copyright Expert Predicts More Regulation for Colleges on File Sharing
William Patry, Google’s senior copyright lawyer and a former lawyer for the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, has dissected the provision in the mammoth higher education bill regarding peer-to-peer file sharing on college campuses. And what he writes on his blog Wednesday is not encouraging for colleges. The provision requires colleges to develop plans to use technologies for stopping illegal file sharing and “to the extent practicable” to provide students with subscription based services for downloading movies and music.
After reading a congressional report that clarifies the bill’s language, Mr. Patry concludes that the next Congress is likely to require colleges to use specific technologies to deter students from trading online copyright-protected music and video files. He calls the report “extraordinary” in its “detailed endorsement of private sector products” aimed at thwarting the swapping of these files. The products named in the report are Audible Magic’s CopySense Network Appliance and Red Lambda’s Integrity, which can detect and/or cancel the transfer of copyright-protected music and video files, and Packateer, bandwidth-shaping technology. This report language, he writes, was likely written by the Motion Picture Association of America.
He surmises that the group eventually “will complain about universities’ alleged failure to be MPAA’s cops, and will lobby for mandated use of technologies, along with forfeiture of federal funding for not doing so. Why not throw in a 10 year federal prison term for the president of a university that isn’t up to snuff,” he writes. “Or, how about adopting Sarbanes-Oxley for university officials who will have to swear on penalty of perjury (and imprisonment) that they have fulfilled MPAA’s requirements?”—Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Thursday July 31, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [3]July 30, 2008
Recording and Movie Industries Win Out Over Colleges in Higher-Education Bill
In the longstanding battle between the higher-education community and the entertainment industry over how aggressive colleges should be in trying to stop the swapping of music and video files over campus networks, the entertainment industry has prevailed.
The industry triumphed in pushing through a provision in the renewal of the Higher Education Act that would force colleges to use “technology-based deterrents” to curtail the ability of students to share copyrighted works using peer-to-peer networks. The industry also succeeded in attaching language to the bill that would force colleges “to the extent practicable” to offer students music and video through subscription-based services such as Ruckus Network Inc. Negotiators for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate reached agreement on the bill Tuesday night.
Educause, a higher-education technology group, had taken the lead in trying to prevent the proposals from making it into the bill. The group says students do not want to use or pay for subscription-based music services. The group also argues that computer tools to deter copyright infringement, like Audible Magic’s CopySense, are expensive and don’t always work.
A congressional report accompanying the bill makes the copyright provision more palatable, says Mark A. Luker, vice president of Educause. The report says that packet-shaping software to detect which students are hogging too much bandwidth—often the result of swapping music files—is an acceptable “technology-based deterrent.” Many colleges use this technology.
The report also states that lawmakers “intend for each institution to retain the authority to determine what its particular plans for compliance” with the provision will be “including those that prohibit content monitoring.”—Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Wednesday July 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [8]July 7, 2008
Judge Suspends Recording-Industry Subpoena Served on N.C. University
A federal judge has become skeptical of tactics used by the recording industry to identify students at North Carolina State University suspected of swapping music online in violation of copyright law. The judge, Louise W. Flanagan, of the U.S. District Court in Bern, N.C. last week suspended enforcement of a subpoena served on the university that requires it to name students affiliated with certain Internet addresses.
An attorney representing the students is claiming that MediaSentry, the company that the Recording Industry Association of America uses to ferret out traders of music online, has been illegally operating in the state. (A group of Boston University students made the same argument back in April.)
Ms. Flanagan has referred the matter to James E. Gates, a magistrate judge, to take a “fresh look” at the case. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Monday July 7, 2008 | Permalink | CommentJuly 2, 2008
Founder of Textbook-Download Site Says Offering Free Copyrighted Textbooks Is Act of 'Civil Disobedience'
Publishers see Web sites like Textbook Torrents, which offer free downloads of textbooks without authorization, as part of a growing problem of piracy that could potentially threaten their industry. But the founder of Textbook Torrents calls his actions “civil disobedience” against “the monopolistic business practices” of textbook publishers.
The site’s founder, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of legal action against him, talked to The Chronicle over an Internet phone call last night and defended his creation, though he described it as operating in a “legal gray area.” He said he is an undergraduate at a college outside of the United States, though he would not name the institution or country, and that he operates the Web site from there.
His biggest complaint: that textbooks are just too expensive, and that prices climb each year. “We’re showing both students and textbook publishers that this isn’t acceptable anymore,” he said. “A lot of users are absolutely fed up with the system.” He said he views the 64,000 registered users of his textbook-download site as votes against that system.
The site started last January, but except for an author or two writing to ask that their books be removed, no one had complained until recently, he said. Last Friday, after The Chronicle began asking publishers about the site, Pearson Education sent the site a note demanding that 78 of its titles be removed. The site quickly complied. “We don’t have the legal muscle to fight them,” the founder said. But he added that he will press on with the site, even if such takedown requests continue. “I certainly have no intention of going anywhere.”
The site takes in some money through banner advertising, and some users have made donations, but he said Textbook Torrents is not profitable, and that the goal is simply to break even rather than to benefit financially.
The Chronicle requested an interview with officials at Pearson to talk about the site. In response, they issued the following statement by LaShonda Morris, a Web security specialist: “Pearson does monitor this and other potentially infringing websites. We have contacted this particular site and they have complied with our request to remove our copyrighted material.”
Reactions to the Web site in a Wired Campus discussion this week have been mixed.
“Perhaps if the textbooks were not $120 for mediocrity, there would be no need” for the site, said one commenter.
Others, however, called downloading textbooks theft, plain and simple. “Let’s just have anarchy where nobody pays for anything they deem ‘too expensive’ priced by the ‘rapacious textbook publishing [or any other] industry,’” said one participant in the discussion. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Wednesday July 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [32]July 1, 2008
Fighting a Textbook-Piracy Site
Textbook Torrents lists more than 5,000 textbooks for free download, employing the same peer-to-peer technology used to illegally download music and movie files. One of its slogans: “Because you can’t download beer.” The site is one of several where copyrighted books are available for unauthorized download.
Publishers say that online textbook publishing is on the rise, as detailed in a free article today in The Chronicle. Publishers and publishing groups now regularly scan the Web looking for book download sites and demanding the files be removed. After The Chronicle started asking publishers about Textbook Torrents last week, Pearson Education sent a request to the site to remove 78 listings of its books. Site administrators quickly complied, and according to an announcement on the site posted today, users will soon have to sign an agreement to follow certain guidelines in order to use the site. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Tuesday July 1, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [31]June 19, 2008
Law Professors File Brief in Support of Piracy Defendant
Ten American law professors have filed a brief in support of Jammie Thomas, the first and only defendant to go to trial in a music-sharing case brought by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Last October a jury ruled that Jammie Thomas owed Capitol Records $222,000 for sharing music on her computer. Then, last month the judge in the case said he may have “committed a manifest error of law” when he instructed the jury to consider the act of making copyrighted songs available for download equivalent to infringement, whether or not the songs were actually downloaded.
The 10 law scholars argued in their brief that the judge had indeed made an error, and that making a song available when there was no evidence that the song was then illegally downloaded did not violate the copyright owner’s exclusive right of distribution. Courts have been divided on the “making available” issue.
The law professors who filed the brief are Annemarie Bridy, University of Idaho; Michael W. Carroll, Villanova University; Ralph D. Clifford, Southern New England School of Law; Thomas F. Cotter, University of Minnesota; Jon M. Garon, Hamline University; Stephen McJohn, Suffolk University; Tyler T. Ochoa, Santa Clara University; Niels B. Schaumann, William Mitchell College of Law; Christopher Sprigman, University of Virginia; and Prentiss Cox, University of Minnesota Law School (representing the other nine professors).
Here’s a copy of their brief, courtesy of Wired. —Catherine Rampell
Posted on Thursday June 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [2]