RIAA Massively Ramps Up Warning Notices To College Students Over File Sharing
from the last-throes... dept
While the RIAA has been sending threatening notices to colleges about student file sharing for a while now, it seems to have recently stepped up the attack. Various colleges are reporting a rather massive increase in these notices, despite no discernible change in file sharing activity. In some cases, they're suddenly getting as many notices in a day as they used to get in a month. Some universities are also pointing out that they don't see any corresponding activity in their log files that would indicate that industry insiders had actually checked to make sure these files were infringing.
One interesting theory is mentioned in the Wired article above. The RIAA has been using the number of such notices as some sort of indicator of how much piracy is occurring -- and even lobbying for laws that would require any university that got over a certain number of notices to install special filtering/monitoring software. So, by showing an increase, the RIAA can try to show how "necessary" this is, even if the notices are totally bogus. As one person points out in the article, it does not seem at all reasonable to judge how much piracy is occurring (or what actions need to be taken) based on an arbitrary number that is totally under the control of the RIAA.
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Some one by Anonymous Coward on May 2nd, 2008 @ 5:06pm
please snipe one of these dudes out for us all.. Thanks.
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They need to stop! by steveballmer on May 2nd, 2008 @ 5:54pm
Stop stealing, stop using Macs!
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no more easy street ? by Anonymous Coward on May 2nd, 2008 @ 6:00pm
Have they sent any to Harvard yet ? Gutless wonders.
Yeah, looks like the schoolyard bully picking on the easy targets.
The RIAA has had their asses handed to them by several institutions of higher learning. Have they gone back for more ? See how they are avoiding those that defend themselves ?
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What is forgotten by Anonymous Coward on May 2nd, 2008 @ 6:18pm
is that eventually these college students will be in power making laws while RIAA is rocking away in the old folks home.
Hopefully they are good laws, and don't mandate elderly euthenasia. Mandated elderly euthenasia for RIAA guys would be sad.
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RIAA the latest spammers by John Duncan Yoyo on May 2nd, 2008 @ 7:45pm
Lets call a spade a shovel. The RIAA are spamming colleges and then claiming that they students are crooks because they get the spam.
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by Been There on May 2nd, 2008 @ 8:29pm
Reasonable Judge ....HA!
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by Anonymous Coward on May 2nd, 2008 @ 9:02pm
I am SOOOOO Sick of this - If the RIAA counted all the lost $$ from sending out letter, going to court and the like, they would have saved millions, What fawking RETARDS!
FAWK YOU RIAA, KISS MY ARSE!
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My school by Narcuru on May 2nd, 2008 @ 11:04pm
I work as a network tech for my school (U of I at Urbana) and my school's IT department got an increase from roughly 2 a week to 100 a day for a bout a week. Our job lately has been to tell the other students how to deal with the subsequent shut-offs, and to be honest its extremely annoying. I'd much rather fix people's computers and network problems (our real job) rather than tell half my dorm what they did; it's a heck of a lot more interesting.
I do not doubt they are doing this as a way to show how important it is to combat the "piracy" that is going on. It's gotten to the point where our overarching campus IT guys are overwhelmed (where people get shut off, go through the process, get turned back on, and then get turned off again within 10 mins because of a subsequent request that they didn't get to because of the backlog.) and frankly its rather ridiculous.
It almost makes me want to go and fire up Limewire for the first time in 3 years.
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anybody by just me on May 3rd, 2008 @ 7:36am
any idiot can posted cements on here
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Re: anybody by Mike on May 3rd, 2008 @ 7:50am
Apparently
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by Peter on May 3rd, 2008 @ 8:06am
anybody by just me on May 3rd, 2008 @ 7:36am
any idiot can posted cements on here
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Re: My school by Anonymous Coward on May 3rd, 2008 @ 8:16am
Limewire, What's That :)? Torrents rock, gotta go buy more storage, filled up 2TB going for a hat trick.
Fuck **AA, got 20 movies and who knows how many songs just last night.
HA HA HA...
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Re: They need to stop! by tearbd2 on May 3rd, 2008 @ 6:45pm
> Stop stealing, stop using Macs!
Ubuntu looks great! Holy cow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ
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Bah! by Overtkill on May 4th, 2008 @ 8:18pm
Saber rattling losers. Screw you RIAA! I hope you lose in court against that poor mother and the others on the class action!
USENET for the w1n!!!
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Re: Some one by bored on May 5th, 2008 @ 5:47am
Just one??? Come on, take'em ALL out.
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RIAA turning into Spammer? by RH SEabrook on May 5th, 2008 @ 6:09am
With all the notices going out, and as indicated in the article the numbers are totally in the control of the RIAA, does this mean that they could be held liable as a spammer because of the flood of messages that are bogus and specifically for their own personal gains as SPAM is created to do?
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How many colleges are there? by KD on May 6th, 2008 @ 12:09am
How many colleges and universities are there? A few thousand? How many RIAAs are there? One. Hmmmm. Seems to me that if the colleges and universities would get together, a fairly small contribution from each could fund a LOT of opposition to the RIAA. Sort of like a SLAPP in reverse.
Are there any legal restrictions on such a group effort?
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