[Air-l] RIAA and freedom to copy
Michael Zimmer
michael.zimmer at nyu.edu
Thu May 3 18:05:29 PDT 2007
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
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://
> listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
More information about the Air-L
mailing list