While we laud the schools and universities that fight the RIAA when it comes to releasing student information, not all of them prevail when they do so. Marshall University is one of those who has last, with a recent ruling forcing the schools hand in releasing the information of seven students suspected of file sharing.
Following the original subpoena, MU told the courts that digging up who the seven flagged IP addresses belonged to would be an "undue burden", requiring an investigation and a lot of resources, and might not even give them the answers they want. The court didn't agree with them, saying that the amount of work the school would have to do was relatively little. It's a small setback for the fight against the RIAA, but is inevitable from time to time. Hopefully the school will still attempt to protect their student's privacy. The example they set in fighting will hopefully encourage other schools not to roll over for the RIAA without a fight.