The RIAA piracy fight makes it to the Ivy League

    This article summarizes the RIAA’s stand on colleges and illegal downloading. The RIAA has sent letters to 16 campuses including the University of Pennsylvania, informing the schools that illegal downloading is occurring on their campuses. The letters however, do not single out the students and faculty members accused. This article also discusses the RIAA’s motivation behind lawsuits. They say that lawsuits are not desirable, but are necessary considering the continuous downloading and the costs especially from students. Apparently, “college students accounted for more than 1.3 billion illegal music downloads last year”, leading to more than $2 billion in lost wages. The RIAA also argues that students would not use the ‘best practices’ when the alternative is free, leading them to believe that the lawsuits are completely necessary.

    This article offers opposition to my thesis, giving the RIAA’s point of view. By giving the information regarding the number of students who download illegally as well as the impact on revenue and jobs, college students are obviously an important aspect in the RIAA’s fight against illegal downloading. It also proves the serious nature of the RIAA’s battle because they have begun to go against larger and more financially powerful schools, such as the Ivy League as opposed to focusing just on the individuals. The universities who receive these letters from the RIAA are important to my topic because their situation exemplifies the changing nature of the reaction to file sharing. The RIAA has become so paranoid about college students file sharing that it is now pressuring universities to become involved.

NOTE: This article is difficult to find on Lexis-Nexis. Do a powersearch and specify "Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology" as your source.

This is a journal article by a man named Daniel Reynolds who attends the University of Minnesota Law School. The article appeared in the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, and Technology. The article gives background information about RIAA lawsuits, and proposes solutions to the file-sharing problem. The author says that the RIAA believes the lawsuits are necessary to make people respect copyrights and deter them from sharing files. The problem with this reasoning, however, is the actual result of the lawsuits. Since 2003, the number of people using file-sharing networks has more than doubled, and there have been 26,000 suits since then. The author continues by discussing the amount the file-sharers are asked to pay for a settlement. The RIAA can claim “statutory damages,” and demand $750 per song. Nearly all of the file-sharers settle, however, because legal fees are so high. A single mother named Jammie Thomas was sued for sharing files, and because the RIAA believed she did it willfully, they asked for $9,000 per song, totaling $222,000. The author believes that the RIAA is alienating the demographic they sell to with these expensive lawsuits.
The author proposes a few solutions to the file-sharing problem. First of all, he says that the government could change copyright law to make copyrights last for shorter periods of time, making less songs illegal to share. Secondly, he suggests that part of the P2P programs’ fees could be paid to the RIAA, along with part of the money paid for computers or blank CDs. These levies would be enforced if the RIAA guaranteed they would stop filing lawsuits. Lastly, the author suggests large-scale music licensing.
This article was helpful in many ways to my research. It shows that the file-sharing suits are ineffective, the settlements are unfair, and that a solution is needed. The lawsuits are simply not working to prevent file-sharing, and there are statistics to prove this. If the number of file-sharers hasn’t gone down, it seems clear that the RIAA isn’t trying to solve a problem, it is just trying to take money from students and other individuals. Secondly, charging $750 per song is absolutely ridiculous. These songs can be downloaded on iTunes for 99 cents, and it seems like these exorbitantly expensive settlement amounts are completely arbitrary. The RIAA is only angering the people it wants to sell music to, and needs a new approach.
I don’t think the government should place levies on things like computers and CDs to be paid to the RIAA, because not all people use these things for illegal purposes, and I don’t think copyright law needs to be changed. I think the best solution is large-scale licensing, like the author suggests. Here at Penn, the university has tried to prevent file sharing by giving students free access to Ruckus, a program that gives students access to many copyrighted songs. The problem with this solution is that Ruckus is not compatible with Macs, and the songs cannot be downloaded to mp3 players like iPods (without paying an additional $20 a semester). If universities offered programs like Ruckus that were compatible with all computer types, and paid the extra fees so students could play music on their iPods, there would be no incentive to download music illegally. I think this would be the best solution even though it would be expensive for the university. After all, we are paying the university tens of thousands of dollars per semester...

This is a court decision from the US District Court for the District of Maine.  It was made on January 25, 2008.  In the case, the RIAA sued 27 University of Maine students for copyright infringement, because of their use of the Gnutella file-sharing network.  9 of the students, referred to as “Does,” moved to dismiss the complaint, but in this decision the court rejected the motion.  The court said that infringement consists of, “..downloading and distribution of copyrighted sound recordings,” and that “…record companies have the exclusive right to reproduce [the recordings].”  Lastly, the court said that the students’ infringement was “willful,” and, “intentional.”
    In the decision, the court explained how the RIAA discovered that these students were sharing files.  It was explained that the RIAA hired a private company called MediaSentry to log onto the file-sharing network, and download music files from students who were sharing them.  MediaSentry then gave the RIAA the students’ IP addresses and the files in question.  The RIAA reviewed the list of files being shared to see if they were actually copyrighted material, and then listened to them to verify this.    After this determination, the RIAA gave the IP addresses to the University of Maine and asked them to identify the students.  The students were sharing from 81-2903 copyrighted files.
    Learning exactly how the RIAA identifies infringers was extremely important to my paper.  This case explains each step in the process of deciding to file the lawsuit, and what the RIAA’s definition of infringement is.  These details allow me to make a judgement of whether or not I think the lawsuits are fair, which is one of the main discussions of my paper.
    First of all, simply reproducing a copyrighted work should not be considered copyright infringement.  If a person legally purchases a CD, and wants to copy the files to his or her computer, he or she should definitely be allowed to.  If the user does not distribute these files, I don’t believe he or she is breaking the law.  Secondly, once these files are being shared on a P2P network, the RIAA claims that they listen to every song to verify that it is indeed copyrighted material, but I question whether or not that is true.  After reviewing thousands of file names, does the RIAA really take the time to listen to every single song? 
    Based on the RIAA’s process of finding infringers, it seems that people are getting caught for making files available on a P2P network, but not for actually downloading copyrighted files.  For example, if I downloaded a thousand songs and took them out of my shared folder, the RIAA would not be able to discover my actions.  Therefore, the people who upload files are considered criminals, but those who download and steal them are not necessarily prosecuted.
    The students being sued had from 81-2903 shared music files, and this makes me wonder how these specific 29 students were chosen.  Certainly there were other infringers who had more than 81 songs.  Assuming this is true, the RIAA gives no reason why these individuals were chosen.  It seems that the RIAA is suing people randomly, which isn’t a fair way to file lawsuits.  There needs to be more specific criteria.

This is the defendant’s opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss the counterclaims in the case of Sony BMG Music Entertainment et al. v. Joel Tenenbaum.  Joel Tenenbaum was sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement, and Charles Nesson, his attorney, filed a countersuit against the RIAA for abusing the court system.  The RIAA wanted to dismiss the counterclaims, and this is Nesson’s defense. 
    Nesson believes that the RIAA is trying to “…punish him (Tenenbaum) beyond any rational measure of the damage he allegedly caused.”  He believes that the RIAA is trying to FRIGHTEN the public, and its not actually seeking legitimate damages.  This intimidation is an abuse of the law.  Tenenbaum only shared 7 copyrighted songs illegally.  Nesson is challenging the constitutionality of the process, saying that due process of law is being neglected because of the “grossly excessive” statutory damages (a minimum of $750 per song with a potential maximum of $150,000).  He believes that Joel’s case should be tried in a criminal court, giving him a trial by jury.  He worries that the courts are giving “excessive prosecutorial power to private hands,” and compares the situation to hundred thousand dollar speeding tickets being given by self -interested police officers.  He reminds the court that Joel acted with no malice and made no profit, and wonders, “Is the law just the grind of a statutory machine to be carried out by judge and jury as cogs in the machine, or do judge and jury claim the right and duty and power of constitution and conscience to do justice?” 
    Basically, the RIAA is just trying to scare people away from file sharing networks, and their lawsuits are unfair because no one can challenge them without facing extremely high costs.  The RIAA and the courts are exploiting the public, and they must be challenged.  Laws made by lobbyist influence are allowing the RIAA to act as a bully, and all of these defendants deserve due process of law (a constitutional right by the 14th amendment).  These are criminal matters, and they should not be tried in civil courts.  I believe that the court needs to sit back and examine the whole situation, and hopefully realize that an abuse of power is taking place.  My paper will use these points to define the RIAA lawsuits as completely unfair.  Hopefully someday the courts will prevent the RIAA from filing blatantly unfair lawsuits that are extremely difficult to fight, and with Nesson at the forefront of the battle, that day could come soon.

This is a document called RIAA v. The People: Two Years Later, which is on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website.  It was written in 2005, which is two years after the file sharing lawsuits started.  The article provides information about the legality of the lawsuits along with their results, and it also shares personal stories about individuals who have been sued.  One interesting note is that the RIAA used to offer amnesty to anyone who deleted their copyrighted files and signed an agreement to stop file sharing, but some of these people were sued anyway.  The RIAA was sued for false advertising.
The EFF wants the public to know that the people being sued are chosen randomly, and there is no end in sight to the flood of lawsuits.  The lawsuits have not worked at all, and “Today, downloading from P2P networks is more popular than ever, despite the widespread public awareness of the lawsuits.”  The number of P2P users increases every month.  89 percent of high school students reported that they knew file-sharing was against the law, and that they would continue doing it anyway.  The EFF suggests cutting the prices of songs on iTunes (because there are 35 times as many songs downloaded illegally as there are downloaded on iTunes), or having the record companies collectively license music to individuals for a flat fee of around five dollars a month.
    The EFF shares the stories of many people who have been sued and are in terrible financial situations, to elicit the sympathy of the public.  For example, a 71 year-old grandfather was sued, along with a 12 year-old girl who had a single mother.
    This document is extremely useful to my argument because it provides statistical evidence that the lawsuits have not slowed down file sharing, which was their goal.  The RIAA wanted to use the lawsuits to educate people, but people clearly don’t care about the legality of their downloading.  P2P programs are extremely easy to design, and even if they add filters to the popular ones, other unfiltered applications will be created eventually.  The RIAA needs to take drastic action in the form of large-scale licensing, or their problems will never be solved.
    While I agree with the EFF on most accounts, I strongly disagree with their use of sob-stories to promote their views.  It is unfortunate that some people with very little income were sued by the RIAA, but a person’s financial situation should not affect whether or not they are sued.  If the RIAA is going to file lawsuits, they should sue the users with the most copyrighted material, regardless of their income.  The whole strategy of using lawsuits to stop file sharing, however, just doesn’t seem like it will ever work.  And hopefully, ISPs and universities will do their best to protect the identities of their users.

http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/RIAAatTWO_FINAL.pdf

This is a document called RIAA v. The People: Two Years Later, which is on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website. It was written in 2005, which is two years after the file sharing lawsuits started. The article provides information about the legality of the lawsuits along with their results, and it also shares personal stories about individuals who have been sued. One interesting note is that the RIAA used to offer amnesty to anyone who deleted their copyrighted files and signed an agreement to stop file sharing, but some of these people were sued anyway. The RIAA was sued for false advertising.
The EFF wants the public to know that the people being sued are chosen randomly, and there is no end in sight to the flood of lawsuits. The lawsuits have not worked at all, and “Today, downloading from P2P networks is more popular than ever, despite the widespread public awareness of the lawsuits.” The number of P2P users increases every month. 89 percent of high school students reported that they knew file-sharing was against the law, and that they would continue doing it anyway. The EFF suggests cutting the prices of songs on iTunes (because there are 35 times as many songs downloaded illegally as there are downloaded on iTunes), or having the record companies collectively license music to individuals for a flat fee of around five dollars a month.
The EFF shares the stories of many people who have been sued and are in terrible financial situations, to elicit the sympathy of the public. For example, a 71 year-old grandfather was sued, along with a 12 year-old girl who had a single mother.
This document is extremely useful to my argument because it provides statistical evidence that the lawsuits have not slowed down file sharing, which was their goal. The RIAA wanted to use the lawsuits to educate people, but people clearly don’t care about the legality of their downloading. P2P programs are extremely easy to design, and even if they add filters to the popular ones, other unfiltered applications will be created eventually. The RIAA needs to take drastic action in the form of large-scale licensing, or their problems will never be solved.
While I agree with the EFF on most accounts, I strongly disagree with their use of sob-stories to promote their views. It is unfortunate that some people with very little income were sued by the RIAA, but a person’s financial situation should not affect whether or not they are sued. If the RIAA is going to file lawsuits, they should sue the users with the most copyrighted material, regardless of their income. The whole strategy of using lawsuits to stop file sharing, however, just doesn’t seem like it will ever work. And hopefully, ISPs and universities will do their best to protect the identities of their users.