Recording Industry to Sue College Students For Piracy

[Twister_29]

Recording Industry to Sue College Students For Piracy (Update2)
April 12 (Bloomberg) -- The recording industry said it plans to sue as many as 405 students at U.S. universities tomorrow for using a closed computer network to illegally send movies and music over the Internet.

The students at 18 schools, including Harvard University, were sending information over Internet2, a network developed by universities to exchange research, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. The movie and music files were distributed through a Web site called i2hub, which calls itself ``the world's largest student network,'' the association said.

The lawsuits, to be filed in federal courts across the country, will be the first related to the use of Internet2 to download music, movies and software, the association said, and are part of an effort to curb piracy on college campuses. Worldwide sales of recorded music fell to $33.6 billion last year from a peak of $39.7 billion in 2000, partly due to piracy.

``Unfortunately, i2 is increasingly becoming the network of choice for students seeking to steal on a massive scale,'' RIAA President Cary Sherman said during a conference call with reporters. The people using the network ``mistakenly believe their illegal file-sharing activities can't be detected.''

By using the transmission speeds available on Internet2, movie files can be downloaded in five minutes and music files in less than 20 seconds, far more quickly than broadband speed.

18 Colleges

The 405 lawsuits against individuals at 18 colleges seek to identify the names of the people who have been distributing the copyrighted files, and compensation that can reach up to $150,000 for each file under U.S. copyright law, the group said.

The RIAA said there is evidence of use of i2hub for illegal downloading at another 140 schools in 41 states.

The lawsuits announced today will be filed tomorrow against students at schools including Harvard, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Ohio State University and the University of California at Berkeley.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major movie studios, will hold a press conference later today announcing similar lawsuits.

According to i2hub's Web site, it was created by Wayne Chang, a University of Massachusetts student who has worked for Napster Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. The web site is not one of the defendants to be sued tomorrow, Sherman said, adding that the group has ``made no decisions at this time about future actions.''

`Collaboration Service'

An e-mailed request for comment sent to i2hub's media relation's office wasn't immediately returned. In a January article with the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, Chang called the site a ``student collaboration service'' and said it has ``no control over what students use it for.''

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a separate appeal filed by the RIAA and other entertainment companies that seeks to hold file-sharing networks Grokster and StreamCast liable for infringement by their users.

The suits are similar to the more than 9,000 complaints filed since the RIAA began suing individual users, including college students, in September 2003. About 1,900 of those people have opted to settle for about $3,000 to $5,000 rather than face a court battle.

None of the people in the latest round of lawsuits will be identified in the suits, the group said. The RIAA plans to learn the identities of the song downloaders through court-issued subpoenas.

More Lawsuits

The recording industry group's members include Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company; New York-based Sony BMG, formed when Germany's Bertelsmann AG and Sony combined their recorded music units; London-based EMI, home of singer Norah Jones; and Warner Music Group, headed by Edgar Bronfman Jr. and based in New York.

Also today, the International Federation of Phonographic Industry, the music industry's global trade group, announced lawsuits against 963 people in 11 countries in Europe and Asia. Worldwide, more than 11,500 cases have been brought against people suspected of illegal file-sharing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aonH.IO7YeCw&refer=us

[AlecWest]

I'd like to see some dispassionate reporter do a quick fact-finding article ... with only two facts to find:

1) How much money the industry has paid out in legal expenses to-date to litigate?

2) How much money the industry has taken in from defendants in that litigation?

It sounds pretty scary when they say things like "...more than 11,500 cases have been brought against people suspected of illegal file-sharing..." But, like Jerry McGuire's client once asked him, "Show me the money."

I suspect the figures we'd see would be a testament to the futility of this course of action.

[EvilWizardGlick]

Someone on one of the political sites asked just how the RIAA/MPAA managed to get access to a private network like this.
Legally they would need to be invited to spy.

[Gurm]

Their participation on this private network already breached several laws - and America's universities (especially places like Harvard and Carnegie Mellon) have already displayed a singular unwillingness to hand over private student information - assuming they even log such things.

This will go nowhere fast.

[Nilfennasion]

Let's see...

The RIAA/MPAA, basically a pair of shell corporations run by such monopolist media companies as Sony, with a finger in every pie of price-fixing, sues a bunch of tertiary students who barely have enough money in a given week to feed and clothe themselves.

Yeah, that will win them a lot of friends.

[mjliteman]

Someone on one of the political sites asked just how the RIAA/MPAA managed to get access to a private network like this.
Legally they would need to be invited to spy.

The RIAA/MPAA are members of one of the committees of Internet2 for the express reason of anti-piracy.

http://www.internet2.edu/about/filesharing.html

MJ

[Ironballs]

How do I get access to internet2

[stiltman]

Napster is a member