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Marshall University loses to the RIAA
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.
User Comments (7)
Post a comment| icye on April 16, 2008 1:41 PM | Schools shouldn't go to great lengths to protect its students who are involved in illegal activity that amounts to stealing. I'm sure the students will be bitter when they get their ipods or laptops 'borrowed' by thieves. These students can go and buy expensive beverages everyday but claim to be poor when they get caught downloading music or movies. Spending $13.00 on sites that allow unlimited music downloads doesn't sound too much. I guess people's principles of 'right and wrong' have been warped to the point of being callous toward other's intellectual property.
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| windmill007 on April 17, 2008 10:15 AM | I don't think its right to make anyone the police of the internet. It is free and if its available well to bad. If you want to go after someone go after whoever is offering the service or come up with a better service yourself. I like the one where the colleges offer a legal file sharing service. It should be paid for by the RIAA.
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| ejemmons on April 17, 2008 7:26 PM | Not knowing any wealthy students myself, although surely there must be a few - not the bulk of those requiring and/or recieving education at an academic institution in any event ,I think it's pretty damned ******, and very bad economics, and even worse PR for this ***** RIAA org to go after academia. We need the money for education, lagging as we do as a nation in this respect. But then, respect isn't the record business's strong suit, is it? RIAA, focus on the QUALITY of the hammered owl shit you purvey. Folks might then be quite glad to ante up for your bits of squashed plastic... Leave the prof's bosses alone.
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| icye on April 17, 2008 10:35 PM | The RIAA way of handling this will lead to its demise but it has many friends in the US government that will keep this ancient dinosaur from becoming extinct. The copyright laws around the world need to be redrafted for the 21st century and with clear definition of 'fair-use'.
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| otester on April 18, 2008 8:23 AM | Originally posted by icye:
Wow you're an *****. MP3s are not a physical entity they are not "stolen" they are copied. They are not a private good, they are public good. Stealing is where someone deprives the owner (or previous owner) of use of the stolen object. Even an MP3 can be stolen, if someone was to "cut" the file and paste on to another storage device, therefore depriving the original user of the files use, P2P does not work like this.
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| icye on April 18, 2008 11:53 AM | I don't expect much in trying to reason with hardcore illegal file sharers, its like talking to a brick wall. Illegal file-sharers will come up with all kinds of reasons to justify their habit, but at the end of the day it still amounts to theft. Until the laws are updated for this digital age, this debate will go on for a while.
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| sngx1275 on April 18, 2008 2:25 PM | Purdue stands up for their students, and is allowing an internal P2P network be set up, out of the reach of the RIAA/MPAA.
http://torrentfreak.com/purdue-university-launches-p2p-network-to-bypass-riaa-080415/
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