RIAA to Sue 405 College Students

[WolfmanNCSU]

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said Tuesday it intends to file lawsuits against hundreds of college students sharing music and movie files over Internet2, the next-generation network of college universities that is intended for research of new technologies.

On Wednesday, 405 lawsuits will be filed against students at 18 universities.

Source (http://www.betanews.com/article/RIAA_to_Sue_405_More_College_Students/1113327377)

The problem here is the students were not smart enough to not get caught. I2 is commercial free (hence the great speeds) and suppose to be only used for research and technology. These guys used that bandwidth to share over 9 TB (would be the amount of a blockbuster store) and would average sharing about 100 movies in one day. Thats pretty much screaming to get caught.

Word on the street is that they are targeting users of the I2Hub program and have gathered evidence against students at 140 colleges and universities in 41 states. So college students, you will probably get one of those mass emails sent to you in the next week or so.

Anyway, discuss your feelings about file sharing and the RIAA here....

:pinky:

[Sendok]

i use iTunes, but i will borrow cd's from friends to get music that way. No trail for them damn spooks at the RIAA bwahahahaha

[Viper]

I download, I don't allow uploads, RIAA won't get me. They only target uploaders.

[Lars]

Actually, thats not correct any more.

RIAA members are actually set up as hosts for files, then they track IPs of those that take information from the bait computers.

I work for IT at Washington State University, and we're mandated by law to strictly enforce and monitor illegal traffic for our 18,000 students. We had the FBI come a few years back to arrest some kid in the middle of class, and the RIAA frequently sends us notices saying that (like other ISPs that have been forced into turning people in) we will be held liable for all information and copyrighted material stolen via our network. It sucks, but the RIAA basically has god powers in the courts, and kids that are neck deep in student loans cant afford the $20,000 a day to fight them off in court.

[Kliq]

I don't use File Sharing Programs too much, most of the Mp3s I need I can find on message boards, ect.

And when I do download, I rarely share.

[Viper]

Lars, WSU and the RIAA have an agreement, as with many other colleges, to do this and that is because they are using a local network and not a personalized ISP provider.

It's been documented that if the RIAA were to track down all downloaders, it would take them over 1,000 years in court time. Going after the ones that upload cuts off the available songs to download and is a much smaller and concentrated group.

Also to note, the RIAA has tried taking a few ISP's to court to get them to give a list of the IP's they've gathered off Kazaa and they keep losing.

[Eidorian]

I use iTunes and considering the music that I do download through Bittorrent isn't even close to being popular I'm safe. Unless the RIAA REALLY wants to hunt me down for my video game soundtracks. O.o

[WolfmanNCSU]

I have cut my uploading down quite a bit within the last month. I used to upload about 6 GB a day. Now, just a gig when I leave it on. I usually just share a movie or two, and maybe a program.

I still DL a crap load though. I have not paid for music since around '98. I also DL a good number of movies, but if it is one I really like, I will buy a good DVD. Software, depending what it is, I download and purchase all the time.

[Oddyssey]

well i will see you guys in what 5-10 years?

nah j/k

But i do like their networks I hope on it as much as possable. when I am over at my friends dorm. I think they got like 3 ds3s there. so yeah its bitching for ftp downloading.
Oh btw why use p2p it sucks Ftps are muh nicer if you can get in line for one.

[Alpha Rioja]

idk. i'm more of the kinda of mindset that wants to try something out before i buy it :-/ that's what I use downloads for. and I've only downloaded a couple things. But they're passing a new bill that says if you have so much as 1 copyrighted file in a file sharing folder you can get fined up to several hundred thousand dollars and 3-6 or summat years in prison. you don't even have to be online. as long as your file is in a file sharing folder you're screwed. this bill is sitting on the presidents desk to be signed right now :-/ so.... save your files somewhere else!!! lol

[Viper]

It won't gets passed.

[HereticPB]

RIAA will never learn. They'll go broke before anything happens.

[WolfmanNCSU]

I love a good FTP server. Which is why I run one of those and not a P2P one at my house. P2P is just so easy and quick to find what I am looking for.

[Oddyssey]

Damn what do you have on your ftp? I might add stuff if i can download. :D i got like 68 gigs of music atm.

[nbakyfan15]

My brother knows one of them actually. He says he has a huge binder full of DVDs.

[orcus116]

When will the RIAA learn that the reason they're losing money isn't from downloading but the fact that music pretty much sucks now? I'm most likely preaching to the choir on this though.

[Viper]

I don't load new crap anyway...most of my songs are kinda old, hard to find or out of print anyway.

[Sandman]

Well, I just borrow CD's from my friends and import them to iTunes. I mean I do have downloaded music, but I'd say that's only 5% of my music library.

[Alpha Rioja]

Has anyone noticed that nowadays almost everyone except the really really good artists are just copying really old stuff and making it more up to date :-/ is suxorz, and they need to get real lives cause I listen to the old stuff and the new stuff is crap

[Oddyssey]

yeah I quit downloading music after Kazza. But movies I got alot.

[WolfmanNCSU]

An interesting twist on this....

A federal magistrate has ruled that two North Carolina universities do not have to reveal the identities of two students accused of sharing copyrighted music on the Internet.

Source (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/TechNews/Internet/2005/04/27/1015540.html)

[XL]

Now and then I keep tabs on the RIAA's doings. These bozos are too thick and greedy to realize you cannot continue to strongarm customers without facing the repercussions. Either they'll get a serious backlash that will curb the RIAA significantly or they'll end up driving filesharing further underground, with users going for new technology that would render them and their networks almost invisible and new file formats (hopefully smaller and better than mp3).