Tuesday, March 20, 2007

University of Wisconsin Refuses to Go along with RIAA; Will Not Send RIAA Letters to Students

p2pnet.net reports:

University ignores RIAA blackmail

p2pnet.net news:- At least one American university has the courage to stand up for its students, refusing to cave in to blackmail threats being spammed to schools across the US by the Big 4 music cartel's RIAA.

The University of Wisconsin says it won't be a Big 4 copyright cop, or act as their runner in extorting 'settlement' money from students.

RIAA is short for Recording Industry Association of America, but only one of the Big 4, Warner Music, can be said to be American, and even it's run by a Canadian. The other three are EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany).

They RIAA is trying to terrorize students into become compliant consumers of Big 4 music 'product'.

"The University of Wisconsin went against the national trends Friday by warning students about its policy regarding illegal file sharing but refusing to forward settlement letters to violators from the Recording Industry Association of America," says Nick Penzenstadler in the University of Wisconsin's online Badger Herald.

"These settlement letters are an attempt to short circuit the legal process to rely on universities to be their legal agent," the story quotes Brian Rust, communications manager for the UW Division of Information Technology, as saying.

Complete article

Comment: I am so grateful to the University of Wisconsin for standing up to the RIAA's reign of terror, and call upon all universities who are asked to be henchmen for the RIAA to take a similar stand.
-R.B.


Commentary & discussion:

Slashdot
joegratz.net
Badger Herald
Ars Technica
Broadbandreports.com
Law.Com Legal Blog Watch


Special Thanks to Dave Hendricks of the Post Online for bringing this story to my attention.
-R.B.


Keywords: digital copyright online download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

7 comments:

Sanji Himura said...

On a related subject, the University of Nebraska-Lincon can't turn over the names of 36 students that the RIAA is looking for because of the way that their network is set up.

The bad news is that they would have turned those names over.

http://p2pnet.net/story/11712

raybeckerman said...

that's called screwing up

this is called standing up

Uplinktruck said...

The University of Wisconsin rocks!

raybeckerman said...

indeed it does!

Anonymous said...

There are more universities targeted...what is the penalty to the university if they fail to comply? Or in your words, "stand up".

Ryan said...

I would think none, legaly those are just letters, not lawsuits yet. So it would be volintary if the schools forward them on or not. Well at least in my uneducated opinion that is.

raybeckerman said...

ryan you're not so uneducated.