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Educause Issues Statement on RIAA's Methods of Catching Music Pirates | Comment
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How a Lawsuit Over Electronic Reserves Could Affect Colleges | Comment [5]
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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 | CommentMay 9, 2008
Proposed State Laws Would Link Piracy-Protection Requirements at College to Number of Takedown Notices
College leaders are nervously watching entertainment-industry groups this week.
As a free article in The Chronicle today notes, college technology officials meeting at a policy conference this week described a move in several state legislatures to pass laws that would force colleges to police their networks for illegal trading of music and video files and to buy software to stem the problem. Officials said the laws were backed by the Recording Industry Association of America and other entertainment-industry groups. But a spokeswoman for the RIAA would neither confirm nor deny that the group is singling out state legislatures.
One of the laws, which was recently enacted in Tennessee, requires colleges that have received 50 or more infringement notices in the past year to “reasonably attempt” to prevent infringement over their networks.
Just as these new measures that use the number of notifications as a trigger are beginning to appear, the RIAA and other groups have suddenly increased the number of notification letters they’re sending to colleges.
In an interview with The Chronicle this week, Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, insisted there is no connection between the recent spike in notification letters and the group’s lobbying efforts.
“There’s just no connection to anything that’s happening in Congress, in the courts, or anything else,” Mr. Sherman said. He added that the increase in notifications did not mean that there had been a sudden rise in campus piracy. “We’re constantly asking our vendor to improve performance,” of its software that scans for copyright violations online, Mr. Sherman said. “They just completed work on an upgrade and, poof, it just happened.”
Some college officials remain skeptical, and are redoubling their efforts to convince state and federal lawmakers not to back the proposed legislative measures. —Andrea L. Foster and Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Friday May 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [2]April 30, 2008
Another Threat to RIAA's 'Making Available' Theory
Yet another court decision questioned one of the Recording Industry Association of America’s main legal arguments in prosecuting alleged music pirates.
The RIAA argues that people who have made copyrighted music available for sharing have committed copyright infringement, whether or not the music was then illegally copied and downloaded by an unauthorized user. This argument was questioned in several recent conflicting court decisions. A judge this week in Atlantic v. Howell rejected the “making available” theory and denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment. (There are other wrinkles in the case, too, such as whether the defendants intended to share the music or whether they did so accidentally.)
A bench trial for the self-represented defendants will likely happen sometime in September, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed an amicus brief in the case. The judge’s 17-page decision can be found here.—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Wednesday April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [15]Why Are Colleges Suddenly Getting More Alerts About Campus Piracy?
Tech officials at colleges across the country say they’ve seen a spike in the number of complaints they’ve received from the Recording Industry Association of America. Each complaint says that a specific song or movie is being illegally traded by a computer user on a particular campus.
For instance, George Washington University usually receives five to 10 notices a week. In the past week alone, however, the university has received 123 notices. The messages come to colleges by e-mail, with the subject line “RIAA Infringement Notification.”
But an industry-group official told The Chronicle that the group has not changed its detection methods in any significant way. Are college students suddenly going on a downloading binge? Is something else going on? —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Wednesday April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [11]April 15, 2008
Computer Scientists to Congress: Don't Tell Colleges to Install Filters on Networks
A group of computer scientists in academe, industry, and government is urging some members of the Senate and House of Representatives to oppose legislation that would encourage or require colleges to install network filters to inhibit illegal sharing of music and video files. The group, the Association for Computing Machinery, stated in a letter dated today that filters are costly, ineffective, and undermine network security and the rights of researchers. The warning comes as House and Senate negotiators seek agreement on renewal of the Higher Education Act, which includes provisions to deter file sharing on college campuses. Colleges are fighting the House bill provision, since it would prod colleges to use filters.
“There are known counters to filtering technology,” the letter reads. “Motivated content thieves can encrypt their Internet traffic or use other obfuscation methods to bypass filters that are looking for some specific known signature of the copyrighted work.”
The letters is addressed to the chairman and ranking minority members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and of the House Committee on Education and Labor. —Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Tuesday April 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [7]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 | Comment [10]April 10, 2008
Boston U. Students Tell Judge: Recording Industry Group Uses Unsavory Business
The latest chapter to the file-sharing battle between some Boston University students and the recording industry centers on MediaSentry.
The business tries to ferret out copyright violators by scouring peer-to-peer networks for the Internet-protocol numbers of students who swap music online. The business downloads some songs and takes a snapshot of the students’ music files. The Recording Industry Association of America has been using MediaSentry to help identify students who the industry-group later sues.
But a lawyer for the students informed a federal judge Wednesday that MediaSentry’s investigations are “unlicensed and illegal” in Massachusetts. The lawyer Raymond Sayeg, of Boston, claims MediaSentry received a January cease and desist order by the Massachusetts State Police. Because of this, Mr. Sayeg is asking the judge to void the recording-industry group’s court filings.
The lawyer also is asking the judge, Nancy Gertner, to reconsider her order last week. The judge gave the students a sympathetic ruling but did not throw out the recording-industry group’s complaint against the students.—Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Thursday April 10, 2008 | Permalink | CommentApril 7, 2008
Potential Setbacks for the RIAA in File-Sharing Suits
Three recent court decisions show increased scrutiny of one of the Recording Industry Association of America’s main legal arguments in prosecuting alleged music pirates on campuses around the country.
In those file-sharing suits, judges have probed whether the RIAA must prove that music was actually copied and downloaded, not just that defendants had made the music files on their computers “available” to others. This “making available” argument was also called into question last year in the first successful suit against an alleged file sharer, Jammie Thomas.
The three recent court opinions all came to slightly different conclusions about whether making a file available constitutes infringement, so the issue remains unsettled. Find links to the rulings here: Atlantic Recording Corp., et al. v. Christopher David Brennan in Connecticut; Elektra Entertainment Group, Inc., et al. v. Denise Barker in New York; and London-Sire Records, Inc., et al. v. Does in Massachusetts.—Catherine Rampell
Posted on Monday April 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [3]April 4, 2008
Court Protects Students -- for Now -- in Battle With Music Industry
Four Boston University students, accused of pirating music with their computers, got a sympathetic ruling this week from a federal judge. The ruling notes that the students’ privacy and First Amendment rights might have been violated.
U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner did not throw out the complaint by a group of record companies. But she did say that Boston University cannot turn over their names to the industry—which usually sends letters threatening lawsuits to students once it has those names—until she considers the students’ rights more carefully.
The students “are entitled to some First Amendment protection of their anonymity—albeit limited. Second, the defendants may have expectations of privacy with regard to their identity,” the judge wrote in a 52-page decision.
The decision is not a “win” for the students—as the Boston Globe headlined a story on the case—because the judge didn’t dismiss the charges against them. But it marks the first time a court has seriously considered issues other than copyright infringement in these cases.
“It’s a good idea that courts start to look at these things more closely,” said Tracy Mitrano, director of the computer policy and law program at Cornell University. “There are many broader policy issues at stake here.”
The next step: Judge Gertner ordered Boston University, which provided Internet service to the students, to show her the service contract so she can examine any privacy protections it offered students. She also wants to know about other students who might have used the computer addresses cited by the record companies, in case the four accused were not the actual music pirates. Until further court action, the students remain anonymous.—Josh Fischman
Posted on Friday April 4, 2008 | Permalink | CommentMarch 25, 2008
Lawsuit Argues That Recording Industry's Methods for Detecting Piracy Are Illegal
A legal battle that began nearly three years ago when the Recording Industry Association of America sued the parent of a 7-year-old girl for allegedly downloading pirated music has wound up raising questions about the legality of the industry group’s investigative tactics. Now the case is entering a new chapter that could have implications for the the RIAA’s legal campaign against college students.
The saga began on a summer night in 2005, when Tanya Andersen and her young daughter, Kylee, got an unexpected knock at the door during dinner. They were served notice of a lawsuit alleging that someone used a computer in the house to illegally download songs—including “Shake That Ass Bitch” and “Dope Nose“—under the Internet nickname “gotenkito.”
In court documents, Ms. Andersen denies that anyone in the house ever listened to the songs, much less stole them. She listens to CDs rather than digital music, she says, and is a member of a record company’s CD-of-the-month club. She did a Google search and found a MySpace page of a neighbor who goes by “gotenkito,” and she told the industry group, through her lawyer, that the neighbor was the more likely culprit.
But the RIAA felt that the digital trail led back to the Andersens.
As it has done with lawsuits against college students around the country, the RIAA offered to settle the case if Ms. Andersen paid a few thousand dollars. But Ms. Andersen decided to fight back in federal court and even countersued, arguing that the way the organization hunts for music pirates is illegal. The RIAA employs a company called Media Sentry to search out copyright infringers.
Lory R. Lybeck, a lawyer for Ms. Andersen, said in an interview Tuesday that Media Sentry essentially acts as a private investigator, but does so without the official license that most states require for such activities.
In federal court, Ms. Andersen pressed the RIAA to reveal details of how it came to identify her or her daughter as music pirates. Instead the industry group decided last year to drop its lawsuit against her. This month Ms. Andersen resubmitted her countersuit as its own case in United States District Court in Portland, Ore., asking a the court to stop the industry group from continuing its investigations.
Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, said that other courts have ruled that the way the industry group handles its investigations is perfectly legal. “What Media Sentry does is, they log on to peer-to-peer networks that are public networks,” she said. “This is all public activity. These are all public networks. The information is public information.”
“We follow the letter of the law in our legal process,” she said. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Tuesday March 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [10]