H -°, L 25° | Tomorrow: 
H 29°, L 17°A U.S. district judge granted the Recording Industry
Association of America a subpoena Thursday allowing the company to request
information on 56 University of Wisconsin System students accused of illegally
downloading music.
The subpoena, obtained by The Badger Herald, identifies 24
UW-Madison, 12 UW-Stout, eight UW-Stevens Point, eight UW-Milwaukee, three
UW-Eau Claire and one UW-Whitewater students' IP addresses.
The document grants RIAA the right to request "documents
that identify each Doe Defendant, including the name, current and permanent
addresses and telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and Media Access Control
addresses for each Defendant."
The subpoena may also seek all documents and electronically
stored information relating to the assignment of any IP address that UW cannot
link to a specific Doe Defendant.
UW Division of Information Technology communications manager
Brian Rust said he had not heard of the subpoena yet, but at the end of last
week, received three preservation notices requesting DoIT to keep records of
students' IP addresses, which could have been "in anticipation to receiving
subpoenas."
According to Rust, RIAA first sends UW prelitigation notices
asking the institution to notify the students to remove the files they have
downloaded. If the students don't follow up by deleting the files and
responding to RIAA, the company proceeds to send settlement letters to the
institution, which normally average $4,000 in fees.
"Those letters we refuse to pass along because it's not a
legal document. There's absolutely no proof that [the students] have actually
shared those files," he said. "The matter of fact of a subpoena is that the
RIAA has to have proved to a judge that the people who are identified by these
IP addresses have been engaged in illegally sharing music or other files."
Rust said upon receiving a request from RIAA supported by a
subpoena, UW would follow the judge's decision.
"The RIAA will just say here are 56 IP addresses that are in
your network, and here's an example of the music or the music that we know they
have shared illegally," Rust said. "We want you to pass the attached settlement
letter to them so they can avoid prosecution."
IP hash: 1c222fe2
What’s the big deal? Evolved society has always enforced its laws just as it must. If you want to steal music and movies, go ahead and do it. But suck it up and pay your fine if you get caught. All this stuff is COPYRIGHTED, people. I’m growing sick of students whining they have some “right” to stolen goods. Do the crime? Pay the fine. Or just BUY it. It’s for SALE. This is not all that complicated.
IP hash: c3cec852
“What’s the big deal? Evolved society has always enforced its laws just as it must. If you want to steal music and movies, go ahead and do it. But suck it up and pay your fine if you get caught.”
They are not ‘getting caught’ by law enforcement, they are ‘getting caught’ by a private company that claims the right to enforce laws and impose fines. A privatized big brother is even worse than a government big brother.
If they charged a decent price for CDs/mp3s, people would buy them. When you consider that it costs less than $1 per CD to compensate artists, pay for studio time and promote the tour, where the f* does the rest of the money go? In the pockets of the people behind RIAA. Who’s going to get a subpoena for where the rest of the money goes?
IP hash: 82fba47d
“If you want to steal music and movies, go ahead and do it”
Copyright infringement ain’t stealing.
IP hash: e250e33a
Such pathetic rationalizations for stealing.
IP hash: 5486114f
copyright is a civil agreement, its NOT a crime, no police officer will arrest you for it.
IP hash: b2b43e59
Stealing copyrighted music to essentially “protest” high fees is the most ridiculous reasoning I’ve ever heard! If you think prices are too high for the products, don’t buy them in protest OR protest the high prices in another way. It is just a lazy person’s way of justifying illegal behavior. If the system is flawed, attempt to fix it, not steal from it.
IP hash: b5e8acc3
To 11:46 AM
Single songs can take days or weeks to fully record and master, and thousands of dollars in studio time. You really think that asking $1 for a song is too much? What a joke.
IP hash: f940899d
And just how would one ‘attempt to fix it,’ and do you think people en masse are going to rise up and take on the RIAA? Civil disobedience is not ‘lazy.’ Don’t be an apologist for corporate pigs who have a monopoly and are screwing people. If CDs were reasonably priced, the copyright infringement would drop precipitously. That’s just how it is.
IP hash: 3410e212
Is the RIAA functioning as a cartel? Is that legal? I don’t know much about these legality issues. Flame on.