RIAA on the warpath again...

[AlecWest]

The RIAA is on the warpath over student downloads at universities. So, they sent a number of pre-litigation letters out to universities. They asked them to identify the offending students .. or face litigation themselves. Read some of the responses from universities:

http://blogs.allofmp3.com/music_news/2007/03/28/riaa-vs-students-update/

[SquirrelDip]

Rooster Vacuums

[Conquest10]

I love Nebraska.

Very dissapointed in Purdue.

[gll99]

These complaints are not proven but...

If the police show up for the records with court documents that's different but educators are there to educate not work for private companies.

Any person in the school system who divulges private student identities should be fired, face jail terms for endangering students and then sued for $$$$$$$$$$$ of dollars and never be allowed to teach again.

Any school authority who requests that resources be diverted to conduct these searches should have the full cost deducted from their salary and then fired for breach of contract. (also see lawsuit above)

If they have extra funding and the time to work for corporate america then it should be removed from their budget.
The schools, professors and administrators could face untold amounts if they make even one mistake in identifying someone. What if they failed to safeguard their servers or student accounts or it was proven that other security was lacking etc... That is not far fetched. Who is at risk in those cases. It opens a big can of worms. What if they catch some high profile politician kids in this? Wow!!! watch the sh!t hit the fan. All you need is one kid to get his case thrown out and he can show potential damage and loss of future income because his reputation was affected and ask for punitive damages that could run into the millions. Imagine dozens or hundreds of counter suits like this just for publicly releasing their names to unauthorised personnel.

If that one school thinks $11 per letter is enough then it may be that they just identified the salary they deserve. Just divide $11 by the number of people who touch the forms and then pay them that for the month.
Count all the time identifying, confirming, writing letters, meeting parents dealing with family lawyers. Like it or not, the schools are a party to the action and can't just wash their hands. They will get dragged in by secondary actions against them. This will cost taxpayers a bundle so the administration and teachers should pay part of the cost by significantly reducing their salaries .!!!