Boston College and MIT will try to invalidate RIAA subpoenas aimed at forcing them to turn over the ID's of students alleged to have downloaded copyrighted material from school networks.

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy, "vowed legal action to obtain the information" and said, "These universities have chosen to litigate this in an attempt to deny copyright holders the right so clearly granted in Congress," states a July 22 Boston Globe story here.

Both schools support the rights of copyright holders and would comply with any subpoena that addressed their concerns about the proper notification of students and was filed 'properly' in US District Court in Massachusetts, not in Washington DC, said the Globe.

"MIT of course has a policy of complying with lawfully issued subpoenas," but had been advised by counsel that the subpoena didn't comply with court rules on the proper venue for such a filing and "did not allow MIT time to send any notice as the law requires," its information services director James Bruce is quoted as saying.

"The industry is demanding information from Boston College about three students, including two who used the screen names 'TheLastReal7' and 'Prtythug23,' who shared music using KaZaA," says the Globe

"In a subpoena addressed to MIT, the association is demanding the name, address, and phone number of a student who used the nickname 'crazyface' to download at least five songs, including Radiohead's 'Idioteque' and Dave Matthews Band's 'Ants Marching'."

In each subpoena, the recording industry organization provides a KaZaA screen name, an Internet Protocol, or IP, address, and a list of songs it says were shared from the location, adds the story. Service providers are then asked to release the names of the users whose computers are associated with the addresses.

"Northeastern University, the birthplace of the original peer-to-peer music program, Napster, received at least one subpoena; students there seemed indifferent about the record industry's latest effort: 'Even if I told my roommates about it, I don't think they they'd care," said Justin Ries, 20, a third-year student from Eatontown, N.J'."

the RIAA is a tad bit over zealous it would seem... haha, sucks to be them.

How cool is it that the bastions of intellect remain the citadels of freedom?

Heh. I'm sure the involved students are well on their way to disinfecting their computers. Toss the CDR's, wipe the harddrives using the Gutmann method (dban.sourceforge.net), install a fresh copy of Windows.

"Me? Download music? WTF are you talking about?" Hopefully with a retaliatory lawsuit against the RIAA in short order.

Finally someone gets it.

The DMCA states notification is an essential element in filing a complaint.

FEPA protects the privacy of students.

The AHRA protects the right to copy and share music via AHRA mediums (computers could be considered this).

RIAA, give it up... you are beating a dead horse

MIT does a lot of great things.
Today's application of http://open-gov.media.mit.edu/ will be determining a correlation between those who strongly oppose P2P and those who have been financed by movies/music industries. Plus I want to plug this kick ass site.

What is my thoughts on all this?
The RIAA is not winning any NEW fans over all this litigation. Do u think ppl will actually go out and buy a CD after being sued by Somebody? I would hope not. If you were sued by say microsoft for pirating windows, wouldn't you just love to go out and purchase Windows 2003 Server or any of there new Software? I think not.
I am happy and sad to see these actions of the RIAA. The happiness comes from the actions of schools like MIT and Boston College, and from the future state of affairs that the RIAA is going to be in, in about a year or so, when all these subpeanas get processed.
My sadness is in the INNOCENT lives that will be hurt and families hurt because of the RIAA's Actions, they are destroying people's lives, while the RIAA has been ruining lives for YEARS!
All in all, i hope that over times this site will have millions of followers and all who get sued, may they find this site and join with us!!!!!
Lets win this WAR!

Interesting that Microsoft has never sued college students for copying Windows or Office, even though there is more "pirating" of Microsoft products than there is of music. Yet Microsoft still makes huge profits. Bill Gates may be a monopolist, but at least he's not an idiot like the RIAA.

First of all, I would like to acknowledge MIT as the educational institution with the most consistent and highest traffic to AzOz.com of any school in the country.

Secondly, I thought the RIAA said they were going to go after uploaders. Downloading five songs?

Come on you chicken shit RIAA bastards. Try to shut down FairForShare. Send ME a notice, you fucking vultures. Quit screwing around with college kids. We've uploaded a couple hundred songs are are giving them to anyone who wants them.

Where is our subpoena, Sherman? And to my pals at ASCAP... come on in to my new place so I can tell you what to do with your extortion collectors that roam the countryside here, hitting up every Mom and Pop bar for royalties.

I'm playing one of my songs the first night I open the doors. It's an ASCAP registered song. Start sending me MY checks or I tell everyone along the road from Minneapolis to Phoenix what a bunch of thieves you guys are, too.

The Webcasters Alliance is going to push the button. The real war is about to begin.

Those interested in having their names available for official documents and lawsuits, please sign up for Musicians United for Music at http://www.azoz.com/mum.html

The time is coming when our list will matter. We need to make it at least twice as long as it is now. We are the ammunition for the war. And the soldiers.

It's time to pull together.

I talked to Country Joe McDonald (from Woodstock -- you know, "Gimme an F...") and asked him for some advice on protesting. Here's what he told me:

"It is never easy to change the status quo. It is always a labor of love and that will never change I think..."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been protesting this for months on end. I have no choice any more. Music is my heart and soul and it is being brutally beaten. Our culture is taking a hard hit. Our future as a country is bleak if the actions of the current administration are allowed to continue unchecked.

If the RIAA is not stopped soon, I'll go to another country where culture is appreciated and not legislated. Culture does not belong to the rich; it belongs to the people. We ARE the damn people.

We need to take our culture back. NOW!!

can the riaa only sue you if they sent you a notice that you were breaking copywrite laws? i read that they sent out millions of instant messages to people who were infringing

Hey wait a minute:

"three students who shared music using KaZaA"

"a student who used the nickname 'crazyface' to download at least five songs"

So which is it that they are going after? I though that they were just going after uploaders.

Yes, they ran a spambot that scanned fasttrack for people shareing their music and automaticially sent a warning message. The warnings threatened lawsuits, huge damages, etc. Actually they were completly useless from a legal standpoint, as an instant message is not a legal document and a subpoena is needed anyway, but they were intended as intimidation. I dont tink many people actually bothered to read them. Does anyone read imstant messages on p2p networks? The few I recieve are all from spambots, so I just ignore them now.

Microsoft actually benefits from piracy. People downloading their software for home use gives them a larger market share, and these people then want to use the familiar Microsoft software at work. Outside of the home however the BSA is a very active piracy fighting group. As well as running their own bots on the p2p networks and occasionally breaking up a counterfiting ring they are infamous for their surprise audits. All CIOs worry about the day when a letter will arrive from the BSA saying they have heard rumors about unlicensed software and will be round to investigate tomorrow They are also well known for a survey they did to find out why companies use unlicensed software which concluded that most of it was accidential, caused by IT specialists who were unable to understand the complicated license agreements and made mistakes such as using an upgrade license on a new machine or keeping OEM licenses when upgradeing. The BSA responded not by simplifying licenses, but by running classes to teach IT workers to read legal contracts. At least they dont have the fanatical hatrid of p2p that the RIAA is now infamous for

goldenpi is correct. "Bill Gates was talking to business school students at the University of Washington and was quoted in the the July 20, 1998, Fortune Magazine as saying:

"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Gates also started his empire selling an operating system he didn't own and at the time was not his to sell, so, starting your empire based on making fraudulent misrepresentations is legally not having "clean hands"

I think the downloading statement was in error, because the only way that they would have known the IP of someone downloading, would be if they were the host of the file being downloaded, and that smacks of some sort of weird attempt at entrapment.

No due process
Guilty until proven innocent
This is just fuckin great. What a country I live in. RIAA why don't you ruin our constitution a little bit more, maybe stick in an anti-music downloading amendment.

About the downloading statement being in error,that's what I was thinking also , Code.
Couldn't that somehow be traced back to the host? Wouldn't that be a nice bit of fun!


WABBITMAN

wabbitman: If you have certain firewalls installed, you can tell when you connect to another computer to upload or download. But, this is kind of like a handshake event, in that if the RIAA was hosting the file, they could tell the address of someone connecting, and what port they were using (1214 is a popular Kazaa port). But, we are dealing with bots that generally, get into the shared folder and look for preset copyrighted songs.
Yeah, the RIAA could operate a machine that hosted copyrighted works and then see who they catch trying to download, but this is entrapment, that although they are not law enforcement, it still means they are offering copyrighted works for download by others, in essence, they become guilty of the same thing they are "busting" others for. And for that matter, the people working for them and downloading copyrighted files from other people's machines, are technically breaking the law,unless they have specific authorization from all copyright holders to download the files.But, even then, I think it gets into a murky area of the DMCA. They are only going to be downloading files that the people they represent own the copyright to, if they download any songs that the RIAA does not have a leash on, then they can be busted as well, and they should know that.

no way

Go, MIT. Is there anyone, outside of those who profit from the RIAA who supports this legal bullshit? And since when did the RIAA give a shit about the rights of the artists. Not a dime is going to be handed over to the artists. Then again, in the best case, the RIAA will get about as much. It's still a load of crap, it's not going to work, and the RIAA will wind up in the same position that they were in before the lawsuits: Snarling and crying like little whiny bitches.

I look at it this way if they want to prosecute the downloaders then lets make it hard for them, we should all download songs we own the cd of, and let them scan our computers and subpoena us, then when court time comes there isn't a fucking thing they can do to us. We own a copy of the cd so we did nothing wrong. We can claim we didn't want to make the MP3s our selves or didn't know how. If enough of these types of cases pop up the RIAA will have to give up or go bankrupt.

Hello Code Warrior:
For those of us who are uninformed just how (please in detail) are these firms gathering information on file sharing users? Are they putting their code into your computer? Are they leaving tracks? What is the method, do they search under one artist & song then download a portion of the song (like in e-mule)? Do you belive that they download a portion of the same song several times to get a positive hit? Or are they just using the P2P software to give them the address.
Here is a question for the Lawyer of the bunch, if the search firms are putting code on your computer, are they not violating your privacy? Is this allowed in the DMA? I have heard that some have won against firms that put cookies on your computer.

The RIAA is banking on settlements. Not just to keep their cost down, but to make it look like they're winning in the media.

If they come after you, offer them $1 and to cease and decist as settlement. If they take it, go on an all-out media tour. Start with your local news, and then try to branch out.

If they don't take it, fight it out in court. Spend a day reading copyright laws on Google. Defend yourself (Or talk to EFF.org). Make it as expensive as you possibly can for them. 95% of US civil court decisions are never paid. Why? Because the courts will not enforce it. It's still up to them to collect.

And I doubt that the RIAA would have much difficulty in ignoring the fact that you owe them money - they just got a huge PR boost! And for chrissake, they don't want to have to spend millions of dollars to try to get you to pay after they just spent millions on a team of crack hollywood lawyers in court. They probably wouldn't even break even, even if you had the money.

Where it will hurt is the credit report. But in a few years after this is all over, you'll sit down in a car dealership and they'll have a look at your credit report and somthing like this will happen. "You owe $200 million to the RIAA? Dude. I think I can cut you a special negative-rate financing deal..."

When adversity stares you in the face - spit. Even if adversity is a 300 pound NFL linebacker and you're a 90 pound weenie.

The RIAA is complaining that p2p is cutting into their profits.
Well, if they try to reverse the trend, they will cut into profits of all mp3player manufacturers. And those guys dont fuck around, they can also afford real lawyers.
So right away, we already have some powerful allies (who, unlike the RI, actually deserve my money for tangible products/services which they provide).

Also, please recall that the Internet was designed to have many military aplications as well.
Among other things, it is designed to preserve "command and control" capabilities in a variety of wartime scenarios, including nuclear bombardment and hostile takeover of US hardware.
In other words: I know for a fact that there exist algorithms which allow anonymous and efficient data transfer across North America, even if an enemy is eavesdropping on every link in the graph.

Unfortunately, I cannot bring the specifics of our research here, since one could use it to find out which site I work at, and then I would be in really deep shit.

Suffice it to say that the Internet can be a very powerful communications tool, if used wisely.
Such little Inquisitor-wannabes like RIAA and MPAA have no idea what they are up against.

But they do provide us with a realistic simulation of what would happen if someone were to go after US command and control by using our own network backbone. Only instead of missiles, the enemy uses lawsuits. But their goal is still the same, which is ID and location of targets.

it is all war games, gentlemen. And rest assured, the enemy (RIAA) WILL lose.

Bits of the internet are owned by the military, bits by governments, bits by various universities and quite a lot by communications companies and ISPs. Note that the communications companies and ISPs want the internet to be a largely passive medium for the average user, a place to browse websites but not create any, because its more profitable for them that way and because a lot of them have experience in television.

CodeWarrior
Date: July 23, 2003 @ 8:59 AM
I think the downloading statement was in error, because the only way that they would have known the IP of someone downloading, would be if they were the host of the file being downloaded, and that smacks of some sort of weird attempt at entrapment.

CodeWarrior, You might have noticed that Kazaa, has about 60-140 results for 1 song. When I tried to download these very popular songs, and played them, they didn't work. Also, that 60-140 was on the first try. I didn't push the "More Results" button. I think you may be onto something there. enter any popular song(Except Boy-Bands) and then test the song.

Why doesnt RIAA sue MTV, and many radio stattion sites where you can freely download music. I mean the RIAA is just stupid. They make no sense, and they are going to find out the very very hard way on how not to fuk with the american people.

also as for microsoft and bill gates..he WONT let the RIAA get richer than him. He doesnt like competing. Kinda like this quote "dont steal. the government hates competition.

VOTE THE FUKING CONGRESS OUT!!!!

Some of the best technological minds come from MIT and the RIAA wants to offend them?

surfside6:
If you take explicit measures to block the RIAA and they (or anyone working for them) circumvent those measures, they violate the DMCA and you can sue them.
It strikes me that PeerGuardian might be helpful in this regard. If you block the RIAA with PeerGuardian (along with posting a warning in your user description) and they devise some way to get around it (by using non-RIAA computers), wouldn't that be a violation? Anybody know about this?

how come everyone who gets this is just falling like flies, they dont even challenege it?

I mean
1) Just say that someone hacked your PC and make the PROVE it was you and not someone that remotely took over your PC. Your not responsible for that, just play dumb.
1a) Only the patriot act has defined that but only if you have commited an act of terrorism against the govt.

2) PROXY!?...Guess no one really cares anymore. Im glad they are scaring all those dumbasses!...gets all those shitty ENYA and Boyband MP3s off the net

3) Why would you go after MIT? Now that is STUPID!....Go after STUPID SCHOOLS, not MIT!!!! Come on now, not like they don't have the INTELLIGENCE to find a flaw in everything!

4) Why Waste all this money on MP3's being downloaded? They should learn from software companies...PIRACY!, they dont' go for the small fish, costs to much with no benefit. The RIAA wins $150,000 per song, but for a kid just turning 18...garnishing his $7/ hr job...and he will just go back to downloading again.

Ah well, i use a proxy for my music...TRY TO TRACK DOWN MY IP!!! MWUAHAHAHAH :-x...wait...don't...look over there

/me runs away

Haak3n:

The RIAA seems to have targeted file-sharers who would most likely fold once they got a subpoena: college students, mostly women. I'll bet this is no accident.

Ifeelfree:
I am interested in the mechanism (bots, spiders, etc) that actually looks for things. Without spending 4 years at Caltech it would be nice to know all these devices and how they work and if they leave tracks on your computer. Is there a website, etc that explains these things? I understand that the guy that shared the hulk was caught by an security code his computer tacked to the end of the movie. Although it is illegal to disable security devices, knowledge about them is protected by the first ammendment.

no, they fucking just connect using almost the same p2p software as normal users do, then they just log the IP's that appear in the search results.

In the case of the Hulk dude: he had an early version of the movie, and they happened to simply know who exactly had access to that particular version.
sometimes the movie tapes are numbered (liek in the corner of the screen); you then have to edit it out before you distribute the file.

Back in the day, I actually "bought" ($2 bucks per CD, I liked the pretty box) Lord of the Rings this way, about two weeks before it was released. That was a version apparently intended for "Academy consideration only". It was ripped and burned in DivX format on two disks. I guess the Academy doesn't care much about copyrights either. Well, fux0r.

Mark my words here.

I was going to say something, but won't

ADDA BOY!!, (YOU KNOW WHO GETS IT!!)

I wanna touch on the BSA for a second. Who the hell do these bastards think they are? Every January I hear, "The BSA is offering a grace period..."

What, do these bitches think I'm just gonna _let_ them inspect my computers? I don't give a fat rat's ass if they have a subpoena or not - they're not an authority I recognize, and if one of them shows up on my doorstep, I'm kicking their ass and throwing them out! And I'll do the same with the RIAA, and so should you!