RIAA Cracks Down on Piracy at Smith
Meredith Byers
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: News
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Students who regularly download music should beware: The Recording Industry Association of America is actively seeking students who violate the no-downloading policy and slapping them with lawsuits or serious fines.
Last week, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asked 83 Massachusetts college students to pay $3,000 each or be faced with serious lawsuits. There were 403 violations across 22 universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The group has also filed lawsuits against 24 students across the country. These students allegedly ignored previous offers to settle out of court.
Herb Nickles, executive director of Information Technology Services (ITS), said that college students are one of the RIAA's primary targets because they fall into the age-group that are the most serious offenders. Nickles said he has received more notices of Nickles said he has received more notices of copyright infringement in the last week than he has at any other point in his 15-year career at Smith. In most cases, ITS will receive a notice with the Internet protocol (IP) address of a student who is believed to be engaging in illegal downloading. The notice is then forwarded to the student and the student is asked to remove the software. If ITS receives a second notice that a student is continuing to engage in illegal file sharing, her access to the Internet will be blocked and her name forwarded to Judicial Board for violation of college policies. Companies catch the file sharing, not the file downloading. Software will take everything in a student's music folder and share it with everyone on the Internet any time a student is online.
Companies catch the file sharing, not the file downloading. Software will take everything in a student's music folder and share it with everyone on the Internet any time a student is online.
Nickles said that most of the lawsuits were "not getting a lot of money back into the recording studio. There are major costs in trying to get these people … it's more meant to scare people."
Last week, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asked 83 Massachusetts college students to pay $3,000 each or be faced with serious lawsuits. There were 403 violations across 22 universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The group has also filed lawsuits against 24 students across the country. These students allegedly ignored previous offers to settle out of court.
Herb Nickles, executive director of Information Technology Services (ITS), said that college students are one of the RIAA's primary targets because they fall into the age-group that are the most serious offenders. Nickles said he has received more notices of Nickles said he has received more notices of copyright infringement in the last week than he has at any other point in his 15-year career at Smith. In most cases, ITS will receive a notice with the Internet protocol (IP) address of a student who is believed to be engaging in illegal downloading. The notice is then forwarded to the student and the student is asked to remove the software. If ITS receives a second notice that a student is continuing to engage in illegal file sharing, her access to the Internet will be blocked and her name forwarded to Judicial Board for violation of college policies. Companies catch the file sharing, not the file downloading. Software will take everything in a student's music folder and share it with everyone on the Internet any time a student is online.
Companies catch the file sharing, not the file downloading. Software will take everything in a student's music folder and share it with everyone on the Internet any time a student is online.
Nickles said that most of the lawsuits were "not getting a lot of money back into the recording studio. There are major costs in trying to get these people … it's more meant to scare people."