RIAA to College Students: You’ve Got Mail
To start off March with a bang, the RIAA sent out 400 letters to 13 different universities regarding potential copyright infringement cases, according to Information Week. In their typical ways, the RIAA expects to settle with most students outside of court.
They have even setup a one of those newfangled things called websites and named it P2P Lawsuits. Students and others that have received a golden ticket letter from the RIAA can settle their case online with this site. It appears they are just jonesin’ for hundreds of online settlements as they have taken the time to make settling a lawsuit a simple four step process. I hope the website makes them money so they can fire the toddler they’ve assigned the task of web development…
Created with: Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1
Do you think you’re at risk of getting one of these letters in your (physical) inbox?
Update: The following universities were sent letters from the RIAA:
- Arizona State University
- Marshall University
- North Carolina State University
- North Dakota State University
- Northern Illinois University
- Ohio University
- Syracuse University
- University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- University of Nebraska, Lincoln
- University of South Florida
- University of Southern California
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- University of Texas, Austin
We run a clean outfit here at U.C.; Our N.O.C. blocks Torrent and P2P traffic before it even gets to the internal routers so definitely none of our students will be receiving letters.
Gosh that’s an fugly website…..
No, I live in the UK, and as such probably immune from the RIAA.
The BPI, (British Phonographic Industry), has done a similar from time to time, but no one really buys this whole “music downloading is bad” nonsense. It’s only bad for the music industries who decided not to embrace it when they had the chance, and now can’t control it.
Don’t ya just love India :)
Sadly I’ll be heading to the U.S. for further education… I hope I don’t have any problems….
My favorite thing about the site is that while it was ‘parked’ it was serving ads for P2P software. Yay contextual advertising.
Over at BoingBoing, Xeni is asking for students who have been served to contact her for an article she’s doing…
My friend’s at a college that blocks torrents/P2P so I just send him music over AIM file transfer.
that just sucks big time!
Frank, I’m glad that you guys view BitTorrent as illegal and anything else as clean. With admins like you, it’s no wonder the major ISPs think that HTTP is the only protocol out there! Also, the fact that you think you can block 100% of torrent traffic is quite telling into how much research you’ve done.
Glad I’m not in college anymore :)
This is “social profiling.” The RIAA should be counter-sued in a class-action lawsuit for damages to the character of all college students.
Glad I’m not in college anymore
Glad I live in Brazil, so I don’t have to worry about RIAA ou anything… yet…
Q: Can I avoid this lawsuit if I immediately delete the illegal music and file-trafficking service from my computer?
A: No. Furthermore, once litigation becomes a possibility, deleting music files or the P2P service from your computer would violate your obligation to preserve evidence.
I don’t know if there’s really anything to say to that, other than “lolz.”
If college students really wanted to download music, they could drive around the block and find a nonsecure wifi connection. Download while on a proxy, and burn the damn files/goods.
But, thanks to aol videos and youtube taking the lawsuits for me, i just listen/watch to the videos on their websites LEGALLY.
i forgot to mention, i sent the RIAA an email not too long ago saying “[...] you’ve successfully stopped me from downloading music a few years ago, but you will never stop me from holding the audio recorder next to my speakers [...]” just to see what they’d say. So far, no response.