[Air-l] RIAA and freedom to copy

[Michael Zimmer]

A possible starting point:
http://www.google.com/search?q=riaa+letter+college

Also:
Read, Brock. "Record Companies to Accused Pirates: Deal or No Deal?",  
The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007-03-16, p. A31.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i28/28a03101.htm

The website students are directed to:
http://www.p2plawsuits.com/P2P_00_Home.aspx

(and Ed Felton is a professor of computer science, not an attorney)

-mz


-----
Michael T. Zimmer
  Doctoral Candidate, Culture and Communication, New York University
  Student Fellow, Information Law Institute, NYU Law School
e: michael.zimmer at nyu.edu
w: http://michaelzimmer.org



On May 3, 2007, at 8:58 PM, Richard Forno wrote:

>
>> Is anyone aware of the effort by RIAA to force college students to  
>> pay huge
>> cash settlements of supposed copyright infringement?
>
> Not aware of any legal precedents (yet) but I have heard that some  
> unis have
> pushed-back and told the RIAA they won't do their dirty work unless  
> the RIAA
> pays for the staff costs associated with log analysis and such.   
> Others have
> rolled over and supported the RIAA, too.
>
>> There is no actual law suit, just the threat of a suit and a proposed
>> settlement.
>
> That's the RIAA's strategy, such that it is.  Unfortunately in it's  
> other
> non-college cases where they use similar tactics, they're being  
> tossed out
> of court with growing frequency for any number of reasons --  
> including for
> suing the wrong person or having very circumstantial evidence to  
> support
> their claims.
>
>> Is file sharing really copyright infringement?
>
> My own personal view is that the RIAA  (and MPAA, by extension)  
> would have
> the public and courts believe that 'file sharing' is the same as  
> copyright
> infringement.....and their ongoing public statements over the years
> continues to strongly-suggest or equate the notion of 'file  
> sharing' with
> something that is (or should be) a criminal act.  It's this belief  
> that has
> made the entertainment industry so reviled because that "fear of
> file-sharing" is what's led to things like HDMI, PVP, AACS, DECSS  
> and any
> number of other technological controls contributing to the creation  
> of a
> marketplace of barely-interoperable digital entertainment devices and
> services that increases customer costs and levels of aggravation.
>
> Additionally, ongoing legal woes pertaining to DMCA and the various
> provisions regarding 'copyright circumvention' --- particularly  
> when DMCA
> has been used to threaten (and sue) people for reasons that far  
> exceed its
> original spirit of enactment by Congress -- have raised serious  
> issues about
> free speech, basic research, and assorted aspects of what constitutes
> "information" and "knowledge" going back to DMCA's enactment in 1998.
>
>> From a more scholarly and legal perspective, Lessig, Littman,  
>> Felten, and
> Granick (attornies all, I think) have written copiously on this  
> topic over
> the years and would be the ideal starting point for looking at this  
> matter
> in greater detail.  I strongly-endorse any and all of these folks'  
> writings
> as fantastic primers on these very complex issues at the core of the
> information society.
>
> -rick
>
>
>
>
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