Recording Industry vs The People: RIAA Targets 503 New Students at 58 Colleges & Universities; Continues to Avoid Tangling with Harvard

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

RIAA Targets 503 New Students at 58 Colleges & Universities; Continues to Avoid Tangling with Harvard

Accorting to ZeroPaid.com, the RIAA has targeted 503 additional college students at 58 colleges and universities. We note that Harvard is not among them.

503 "lucky" new students get to start the Fall Semester even deeper in debt.

The RIAA has announced that it has targeted 503 new students in its latest "deterrence program" aimed at eliminating college campus piracy across the country. This brings the approximate number of targeted students to 2,926 and counting thus far.......

In the seventh wave of this new initiative, the RIAA this week sent letters to 58 schools including:

* Boston University

* University of Tennessee - Knoxville

* North Carolina State University

* Duke University, University of Maine System,

* Columbia University

* University of California, Los Angeles

* University of Texas at Austin

* Boston College

* Carleton College

* Georgetown University

* Indiana State University

* Marshall University

* New York University

* Tulane University

* University of Virginia

* Bethel University

* California State University, Fresno

* California State University, Sacramento

* Colgate University

* Emory University

* Loyola University Chicago

* University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

* University of Illinois at Chicago

* University of Mississippi

* Allegheny College

* Gettysburg College

* Lehigh University

* Seton Hall University

* University of Kentucky

* Washington University

* Bryn Mawr College

* Bucknell University

* California State University, Chico

* Creighton University

* Florida Institute of Technology

* Indiana University of Pennsylvania

* Rice University

* Texas A&M University

* University of Florida

* University of Notre Dame

* Bowdoin College

* Haverford College

* Mt. Saint Mary College

* Pepperdine University

* San Jose State University

* Smith College

* Trinity College

* University of Minnesota - Duluth

* American University

* California State University, Stanislaus

* San Diego State University

* University of Hawaii

* Villanova University

* Oberlin College

* Swarthmore College

* Virginia Military Institute

* Wellesley College.

Complete article

Commentary & discussion:

US News & World Report

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

8 comments:

AMD FanBoi said...: Maybe some Harvard Law students would like to do some pro bono advising to the other affected students and universities. Good practice for them while they retain their idealism.

As for the universities, what I've seen too much of on their part is "This isn't our problem, so how do we get out of the middle of it as expeditiously as possible?" This is completely contrary to what the universities should be espousing, which is, "How do we prevent bogus lawsuits from intruding on our student's right to privacy?"

This has been the strength of the RIAA attack. They attack non-parties (e.g. ISP's and universities) first. Of course, no one wants to be part of any legal proceeding for a second longer than necessary (excluding lawyers who essentially bill by the quarter hour, if not the minute), so any non-party would rather roll-over than fight a fight that's not their own fight. Verizon was a rare exception here.

Because of this, the RIAA faces little opposition in the beginning, when they're at their weakest point. This is the same point were the real parties to the suit are prevented from fighting due to the ex parte nature of the proceedings, and the lack of direct subpoenas to the actual parties.

This is a dirty trick, and it's disgusting that the RIAA has been allowed to get away with it for so long.

As for the RIAA quoting this blog, I would sincerely hope that any judge so presented with such a citation would view the comments portion of the blog as expressing personal opinions of outrage at the RIAA's behavior that don't reflect on the lawyer(s) who maintain such blogs, and that any articles cited in the blog are the responsibility of the author of said articles.

To claim otherwise, or that shining some sunlight onto the flawed methods and procedures employed by the RIAA and its agents, is harmful to justice is an outright lie!

My comments are Copyright(c) 2007 to myself, and not licensed for any use outside this blog itself without my express written permission. They are specifically not licensed FOR ANY USE by the RIAA, any affiliated record company to the RIAA, or by the Plaintiff's of any lawsuits regarding P2P Media Distribution System filesharing, downloading, uploading, distribution rights, or "making available" lawsuits!; August 21, 2007 at 11:48:00 AM EDT
Itsmee said...: Ray & Team,

I feel very strongly about the issues surrounding the RIAA and copyright reform. I have been following your blog and the various headlines floating around the web. It seems the RIAA uses some very questionable tactics and I really appreciate people who take a stand against this.

I just wanted to say thank you. And keep on fighting the good fight.

I also want to say I am more than happy to pay a reasonable price for music. But when the record labels begin selling music online through channels such as Itunes, and refuse to pass on any savings from physical distribution they gain from digital music distribution, I will not pay. The price of digital music is not a free market price, its fixed. Again more shady tactics used by the RIAA and recording industry to hold on to their massive profit margins.

If songs were 10-20 cents each, which i think is more than reasonable, I would be buying even more music due to the convenience and I would be one happy camper.

Again thankyou for your noble cause and I wish you luck with the Warner vs. Cassin case next month!

-Malcolm Lowry
IT Consultant/Web Designer

P.S. Save Internet Radio!!!!!!; August 21, 2007 at 2:19:00 PM EDT
raybeckerman said...: It's the RIAA who are trying to "reform" the copyright law.; August 21, 2007 at 4:29:00 PM EDT
Itsmee said...: Ray,

Yes, to their advantage of course. I think the copyright system is long overdue for an overhaul, but I'm worried the lobbying power of corporations will outweigh the advantages of sharing information freely.

Who knows will be interesting to see. Is it possible to get a camera in the courtroom for your upcoming trial? I would love to see how it goes if thats at all possible. Plus would be good to virally distribute information from the trial via youtube and such sites.

What are the restrictions on this?; August 21, 2007 at 4:52:00 PM EDT
Alter_Fritz said...: malcolm, IIRC it's not a trial, but "only" an (important) hearing regarding a motion to dismiss the suit.

RIAA fears real trials with a real jury like the devil fears holy water.

They clog with their boilerplate suits the courts just as long as they could; without risking that a case advances to an actual trial day, just to dismiss at the last possible moment.
And then they complain in their distorted perception of reality that the bad, bad defendant refused to let them drop the case early on even before defendant has answered the allegations or without any costs for defendants.
Smart judge(s) already noted in their orders that these kind of Label-lawyers statements are "not true".

But having some Audio/Video of RIAA-Richard and his infamous drug trafficking analogies to mash with some non label creative commons songs sounds tempting ;-); August 21, 2007 at 6:14:00 PM EDT
Anonymous said...: They (riaa) are avoiding Harvard? Any particular reason why?; August 21, 2007 at 6:26:00 PM EDT
raybeckerman said...: pepper, are you kidding, or are you new here?; August 21, 2007 at 7:45:00 PM EDT
StephenH said...: I feel that the RIAA should stop this ASAP. I feel that these students should start a class action back, challenging their investigation practices, similar to what Tanya Andersen did (i.e. file counterclaims to their john doe suit).; August 22, 2007 at 11:28:00 AM EDT

Post a Comment

JUDICIAL QUOTATIONS

"[T]he Court is concerned about the lack of facts establishing that Defendant was using that IP address at that particular time. Indeed, the [complaint] does not explain what link, if any, there is between Defendant and the IP address. It is possible that Plaintiff sued Defendant because he is the subscriber to IP address .... As recognized by many courts, just because an IP address is registered to an individual does not mean that he or she is guilty of infringement when that IP address is used to commit infringing activity." -Hon. Barry Ted Moskowitz, Chief Judge, S.D. California. January 29, 2013, AF Holdings v. Rogers
"The complaints assert that the defendants – identified only by IP address – were the individuals who downloaded the subject “work” and participated in the BitTorrent swarm. However, the assumption that the person who pays for Internet access at a given location is the same individual who allegedly downloaded a single sexually explicit film is tenuous, and one that has grown more so over time." - Hon. Gary R. Brown, Magistrate Judge, E.D.N.Y. May 1, 2012, K-Beech v. Does 1-37
"The concern of this Court is that in these lawsuits, potentially meritorious legal and factual defenses are not being litigated, and instead, the federal judiciary is being used as a hammer by a small group of plaintiffs to pound settlements out of unrepresented defendants."
-Hon. S. James Otero, Dist. Judge, Central Dist. California, March 2, 2007, Elektra v. O'Brien, 2007 ILRWeb (P&F) 1555
"The University has adequately demonstrated that it is not able to identify the alleged infringers with a reasonable degree of technical certainty...[C]ompliance with the subpoena as to the IP addresses represented by these Defendants would expose innocent parties to intrusive discovery....[T]he Court declines to authorize discovery and quashes the subpoena as to Does # 8, 9, and 14" -Hon. Nancy Gertner, Dist. Judge, Dist. Massachusetts, November 24, 2008, London-Sire Records v. Does 1-4
"[C]ounsel representing the record companies have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers... that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it...." -Hon. Nancy Gertner, Dist. Judge, Dist. Massachusetts, June 17, 2008, London-Sire v. Does 1-4
"Rule 11(b)(3) requires that a representation in a pleading have evidentiary support and one wonders if the Plaintiffs are intentionally flouting that requirement in order to make their discovery efforts more convenient or to avoid paying the proper filing fees. In my view, the Court would be well within its power to direct the Plaintiffs to show cause why they have not violated Rule 11(b) with their allegations respecting joinder. [I]t is difficult to ignore the kind of gamesmanship that is going on here.....These plaintiffs have devised a clever scheme... to obtain court-authorized discovery prior to the service of complaints, but it troubles me that they do so with impunity and at the expense of the requirements of Rule 11(b)(3) because they have no good faith evidentiary basis to believe the cases should be joined." -Hon. Margaret J. Kravchuk, Magistrate Judge, District of Maine, January 25, 2008, Arista v. Does 1-27, 2008 WL 222283, modified Oct. 29, 2008
"[N]either the parties' submissions nor the Court's own research has revealed any case holding the mere owner of an internet account contributorily or vicariously liable for the infringing activities of third persons.....In addition to the weakness of the secondary copyright infringement claims against Ms. Foster, there is a question of the plaintiffs' motivations in pursuing them..... [T]here is an appearance that the plaintiffs initiated the secondary infringement claims to press Ms. Foster into settlement after they had ceased to believe she was a direct or "primary" infringer." -Hon. Lee R. West, District Judge, Western District of Oklahoma, February 6, 2007, Capitol v. Foster, 2007 WL 1028532
"[A]n overwhelming majority of cases brought by recording companies against individuals are resolved without so much as an appearance by the defendant, usually through default judgment or stipulated dismissal.....The Defendant Does cannot question the propriety of joinder if they do not set foot in the courthouse." -Hon. S. James Otero, Central District of California, August 29, 2007, SONY BMG v. Does 1-5, 2007 ILRWeb (P&F) 2535
"Plaintiffs are ordered to file any future cases of this nature against one defendant at a time, and may not join defendants for their convenience."
-Hon. Sam Sparks and Hon. Lee Yeakel, District Judges, Western District of Texas, November 17, 2004, Fonovisa v. Does 1-41, 2004 ILRWeb (P&F) 3053
"The Court is unaware of any other authority that authorizes the ex parte subpoena requested by plaintiffs."
-Hon. Walter D. Kelley, Jr., District Judge, Eastern District of Virginia, July 12, 2007, Interscope v. Does 1-7, 494 F. Supp. 2d 388, vacated on reconsideration 6/20/08
"Plaintiffs contend that unless the Court allows ex parte immediate discovery, they will be irreparably harmed. While the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian "suspension of disbelief" to accept that the harm is irreparable, especially when monetary damages can cure any alleged violation. On the other hand, the harm related to disclosure of confidential information in a student or faculty member's Internet files can be equally harmful.....Moreover, ex parte proceedings should be the exception, not the rule."
-Hon. Lorenzo F. Garcia, Magistrate Judge, District of New Mexico, May 24, 2007, Capitol v. Does 1-16, 2007 WL 1893603
"'Statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages." Hon. Michael J. Davis, Dist. Judge, U.S.District Court, Dist. Minnesota, January 22, 2010, Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset
"[T]his court finds that defendants' use of the same ISP and P2P networks to allegedly commit copyright infringement is, without more, insufficient for permissive joinder under Rule 20. This court will sever not only the moving defendants from this action, but all other Doe defendants except Doe 2."
-Hon. W. Earl Britt, District Judge, Eastern District of North Carolina, February 27, 2008, LaFace v. Does 1-38, 2008 WL 544992
"[L]arge awards of statutory damages can raise due process concerns. Extending the reasoning of Gore and its progeny, a number of courts have recognized that an award of statutory damages may violate due process if the amount of the award is "out of all reasonable proportion" to the actual harm caused by a defendant's conduct.[T]hese cases are doubtlessly correct to note that a punitive and grossly excessive statutory damages award violates the Due Process Clause....."Hon. Marilyn Hall Patel, Dist. Judge, N.D. California, June 1, 2005, In re Napster, 2005 US DIST Lexis 11498, 2005 WL 1287611
"[P]laintiffs can cite to no case foreclosing the applicability of the due process clause to the aggregation of minimum statutory damages proscribed under the Copyright Act. On the other hand, Lindor cites to case law and to law review articles suggesting that, in a proper case, a court may extend its current due process jurisprudence prohibiting grossly excessive punitive jury awards to prohibit the award of statutory damages mandated under the Copyright Act if they are grossly in excess of the actual damages suffered....."-Hon. David G. Trager, Senior District Judge, Eastern Dist. New York, November 9, 2006, UMG v. Lindor, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83486, 2006 WL 3335048
"'[S]tatutory damages should bear some relation to actual damages suffered'....(citations omitted) and 'cannot be divorced entirely from economic reality'". -Hon. Shira A. Scheindlin, Dist. Judge, Southern Dist. New York, August 19, 2008, Yurman v. Castaneda
"The Court would be remiss if it did not take this opportunity to implore Congress to amend the Copyright Act to address liability and damages in peer to peer network cases.... The defendant is an individual, a consumer. She is not a business. She sought no profit from her acts..... [T]he damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by Plaintiffs." -Hon. Michael J. Davis, District Judge, Dist. Minnesota, September 24, 2008, Capitol v. Thomas
"If there is an asymmetry in copyright, it is one that actually favors defendants. The successful assertion of a copyright confirms the plaintiff's possession of an exclusive, and sometimes very valuable, right, and thus gives it an incentive to spend heavily on litigation. In contrast, a successful defense against a copyright claim, when it throws the copyrighted work into the public domain, benefits all users of the public domain, not just the defendant; he obtains no exclusive right and so his incentive to spend on defense is reduced and he may be forced into an unfavorable settlement." US Court of Appeals, 7th Cir., July 9, 2008, Eagle Services Corp. v. H20 Industrial Services, Inc., 532 F.3d 620
"Customers who download music and movies for free would not necessarily spend money to acquire the same product.....RIAA’s request problematically assumes that every illegal download resulted in a lost sale."
-Hon. James P. Jones, Dist. Judge, Western Dist. Virginia, November 7, 2008, USA v. Dove