University officials recently received notices from the association about the forthcoming subpoenas, though the University does not know when, or if, the subpoenas will actually be served, University spokesman Eric Quinones said in an email Sunday.

"We also received one such notice in January and have yet to receive the actual subpoena," Quinones said.

Quinones said several other universities had also recently received a high number of notices, but did not indicate which ones.

Columbia University and Harvard Univeristy each received one pre-subpoena notice recently from the RIAA, the Columbia Spectator and The Harvard Crimson reported earlier this month.

It is still unclear how the RIAA obtained information about the targeted students.

"We don't monitor students' computer activity and therefore don't know what networks may have been involved in any of the alleged acts or how the RIAA received its information," Quinones said.

An RIAA spokesperson could not be reached for comment over the weekend. The association has previously declined to comment.

Some of the students targeted used a file-sharing program called i2hub, which is accessible to students at 206 colleges and affiliated institutions through the private Internet2 network. The RIAA previously targeted students using public file-sharing programs like KaZaa.

"I thought since [i2hub] was only restricted to university students that it would be safe," said Delwin Olivan '08, one of the students currently being targeted. "I just downloaded files like music and movies, and I just happened to have them stored on my hard drive. I wasn't advertising it or anything. It was just casual."

Programs like i2hub are so large that they can hardly be described as private, said Dan Peng '05, who was sued by the RIAA in 2003 for maintaining his file-sharing site, wake.princeton.edu. Peng settled out of court with the RIAA for $15,000.

"When you have that many schools, it's not really closed any more," he said. "One of the students lets his record industry friend use his account [and the privacy is compromised]. I've also heard speculation that you could have a mole in the inside, but I don't know about that."

After being warned of the pending legal action, students are weighing their options.

"I'm not really sure which direction this is going in," Olivan said. "I thought this might just blow over, but it looks like it's not so I will probably have to seek legal counsel."

Olivan said he is considering challenging the association in court, though he may opt to settle for what he believes will be a sum of $3,000.

"I was going to try to figure out if what they were doing was legal because i2hub was only supposed to be for students," he said. "I think I might pursue it to avoid having to settle. If it's going to end up costing more, though, then I'm not going to pursue it. I'll just settle out of court."

From http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/04/04/news/12550.shtml
==========SNIP================
Hoping THIS article does not get deleted!
"As a solid rock is not shaken by a strong gale, so wise persons remain unaffected by praise or censure"
-Buddha "

What to do?

These college students should nuke their harddrives, & if the RIAA comes calling, force the terrorists to provide proof. An IP address & list of files is hardly proof especially when no evidence can be recovered.

If they have a desk top, swap NICs to obtain a different MAC address. Make those chumps at the RIAA provide real proof to a judge.

Then deny everything, admit nothing.

Does anybody have a list of the schools that are being subpoenaed?

All of them.

"deny everything, admit nothing."

Great advice. Straight out of the X-files.

"These college students should nuke their harddrives"

Not that I condone the actions of the tools who are hurting our cause by giving away RIAA music for free, but I do strongly feel that the RIAA should go to hell:

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

I like Autoclave a lot.

"Some of the students targeted used a file-sharing program called i2hub, which is accessible to students at 206 colleges and affiliated institutions through the private Internet2 network."

I don't believe them. I will never believe they were legally able to gain user information from i2hub.

These cheapskates would never dole out the money and resources required to gain access to i2, and no college student in their right mind would offer them access to i2.

This would mean they'd have to hack into i2 to get user names, which is illegal.

In court, if evidence suddenly disappears the court can issue evidentiary sanctions like ordering the jury to find that all of the listed files were in fact on the computers.

If sufficient prior data can be demonstrated by the plaintiff(s) to satisfy the judge?

In court, if evidence suddenly disappears the court can issue evidentiary sanctions like ordering the jury to find that all of the listed files were in fact on the computers.

... and i suppose the judge can order the jury to find that a body and murder weapon exist and are tied to the victim in a similar situation in a murder case?

this sounds like an unconstitutional overstep of judical authority.

the judge only has the word of a prosecutor.. or in this case a slimy lobbying group.. as to weather or not evidence exists...

this is not the same as evidence previously introduced in a case getting "lost".

as such.. the burdon is on the plaintiff to prove the evidence actually existed before such an order can be constituionally allowed.

With the "burden on the plaintiff to prove the evidence actually existed", that opens up some interesting possibilities. (In fact, it may often be tenuous to try to 'prove' evidence had existed without its substance being available.)
Interesting to peruse this point of law; an attorney's opinion would be helpful (yoo-hoo, leflaw, where are you?)

Before issuing subpeonas, the RIAA obtains all of the downloaded music files on the computer of the IP address, puts them on the screen, then takes a photograph of the screen, which has been considered sufficient evidence that the files existed.

"this sounds like an unconstitutional overstep of judical authority."

"as such.. the burdon is on the plaintiff to prove the evidence actually existed before such an order can be constituionally allowed."

Raolduke1 is an attorney. You are a punk who doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. You can't even spell "burden" for chrissake.

Please shut your yap and stop opining on the constitutionality of anything because you don't know what you are talking about! What a maroon!

Btw awehr, I happen to be an attorney and I wouldn't come on here yapping about what is constitutional and what isn't because I am not a constitutional law expert and I don't know much about the subject. So it gets rather tiring your repeated poor attempts at pretending to be some kind of expert when you clearly are not.

I wonder when we will see a real court room knock- down drag -out fight between the RIAA and someone that will have the cash and nuts to hire an attorney looking for fame?

Despite mroop's deep-seated need to be insulting, the truth is that "It must have been someone else" has been a winning defense.

There's simply no evidence. You can have all the IP logs and computer connection records, who pays the bills, who owns the computer, blah, blah, blah.

But there is nothing to prove that the person accused was actually the one who used said computer to do the alleged activity.

Must have been someone else.

It must have been someone else" has been a winning defense.
My question: Has this defense ever been used in an RIAA lawsuit, and, if so, has it worked?

"My question: Has this defense ever been used in an RIAA lawsuit, and, if so, has it worked?"

There hasn't been a suit against an individual for sharing that has gone to a judge or jury verdict.

mroop:

i've had just about enough of your pokes at me.

The constitution is not some cryptic collection of heiroglyphs only interpretable by lawyers.. it's pretty straight forward.

The next time you level claims of ignorance i suggest you produce more to back up your insults than the excuse of "this guy has no formal degree".

Under your iron thumb franklin would never have been more than a rural field hand... he had no formal scientific or diplomatic training at all. I guess he's just "a punk who doesn't know what the hell he is talking about"

I need not assert that i have a degree to know that there must be EVIDENCE in order to convict.

The fact that defendants are innocent until proven guilty translates directly into "the plaintiffs bear the burdon of proof"..

The judge cannot simply "invent" evidence out of his arse... if evidence "vanishes".. there must be concrete proof it existed.

I'll grant you one concession though; defendants my wish to submit evidence as well.. it is entirely possible in that case that the burdon is upon them to substantiate their claims of "missing evidence".

"Despite mroop's deep-seated need to be insulting, the truth is that "It must have been someone else" has been a winning defense."

true, "it must have been someone else" is a defense. However, if one want's to affirmatively accuse another and make it stick one has to have evidence.

in criminal cases defendants only need to create reasonable doubt.

Civil cases, though the burdon is not so high on the plaintiffs, still require enough evidence to make the defendant's liability reasonably clear.

one can't do the converse and say "it must have been him" without producing some modicum of proof.

"The constitution is not some cryptic collection of heiroglyphs only interpretable by lawyers.. it's pretty straight forward."

You jackass! If you had any idea how much of a fool you are you would shoot yourself in the head. "Pretty straight forward"? You idiot!!

"I need not assert that i have a degree to know that there must be EVIDENCE in order to convict."

Listen you dumb fuck. Here is what you wrote:

"this sounds like an unconstitutional overstep of judical authority."

"as such.. the burdon is on the plaintiff to prove the evidence actually existed before such an order can be constituionally allowed."

And again I say, you don't know your ass from your elbow when it comes to what is constitutional or not. You don't know the first thing about what you are talking about. But you just blunder on and on and on. You fool!

I'm not an expert, but I know that the parts that actually are straight forward have still been grossly misinterpreted around here in the past. So, who knows how much the less straight-forward portions of it are being butchered..

Some people here even thought that a company couldn't fire a celeberty with whom the company had an endorsement deal (like whoopi goldberg, for example) because she doesn't support a certain presidential candidate because that would somehow violate her right to free speech.

Actually, none of it can really be classified as straightforward, because their could be hundreds of cases that interpret a particular section. For example, you can read the First Amendment and think it is simple to understand, but there is a huge body of caselaw that interprets the Amendment as it applies in particular factual scenarios.

But really that is all irrelevant. The point is that awehr is making legal judgments about what is an "unconstitutional overstep of judicially authority" and when evidence can be "constitutionally allowed".

The plain fact is: Awehr has no damn clue about how the constitution might be applicable in these particular factual scenarios. NOT ONE LOUSY CLUE!

And when he is called on his bluff he squiggles and squirms and claims that the constitution is easy to understand. What does that have to do with anything anyway? Is there a section of the constitution that explains what is a "overstep of judicial authority"? Is there a section that says when an order can be "constitutionally allowed"? OF COURSE NOT!

Once again, we have awehr talking out of his ass and acting like an expert. It's pathetic!

If having a screenshot proved reality, I could prove I shook hands with George Bush....Photoshop and time can make for an interesting reality.

I wish we could discuss matters without resorting to that D*#$ MOTHER#@$%^&*
profanity!

mroop a lawyer who doesn't know the difference between "their" and "there". That's almost as bad as correcting someone for misspelling "burden" even if the poster doesn't know enough to correct the error after it is pointed out.

I suggest the students delete the data, hide your harddrives somewhere and use a friend's harddrive with a different network card. That way they don't have the right IP Address, hard drive, or other hardware to prove it. But that's assuming that they need physical evidence besides a picture of the downloaded files from the RIAA.