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Volume CXXXIII, Number 1 |
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RIAA cracks down on music piracy
ALEC SCHLEY
STAFF WRITER
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reported on Monday that it has filed 261 lawsuits against "online pirates," people who illegally download music over the Internet. The RIAA insists that the 261 lawsuits are only a starting point. There will be thousands more to compensate for music industry losses.
The lawsuits have sent a shock wave through the nation, particularly on college campuses. According to Tuesday's New York Times, approximately half of all people between the ages of 12 and 22 illegally download music through file-sharing networks. Last spring, college students at Princeton and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, among other institutions, faced huge lawsuits from the RIAA for trading music over university networks. At Bowdoin, there is a growing concern regarding Internet piracy and its potential consequences among both students and administrators.
For the moment, there are no lawsuits filed against Bowdoin students by the RIAA. However, some students have had their internet access cut by CIS as a result of downloading copyrighted songs. Dean of Student Affairs Craig Bradley, believes that should a student be sued, he or she should be held accountable for his or her actions. According to Bradley, "Students who illegally download music are violating federal law and are in violation of Bowdoin's Information Technology Use Policy." Bowdoin's Information Technology Use Policy, found on page 84 of the Student Handbook, states that users must abide by all local, state, and federal laws and regulations, including those related to the Internet, electronic communications or commerce, copyright, trademark, and intellectual property.
"Students would be held accountable for violating [the Information Technology Use Policy]," said Bradley. "If a student is found to have violated federal law, the College would hold the student responsible for that as well."
The RIAA's actions have generated a considerable amount of controversy; some argue that lawsuits are too harsh a measure for punishing people, especially young people. While Bradley said, "The lawsuits are perhaps the only real legal tool the RIAA has," he also said that "Lawsuits in these cases are blunt tools. This is an example of technology developing faster than the business models and the laws that exist to enforce those models.
Elan Oren who was quoted in Tuesday's New York Times saying, '"…rather than filing huge lawsuits, record labels should work with file-sharing services to devise a method of compensation in exchange for legally distributing their music over the peer-to-peer networks." The underlying idea seems right to me: those who create the content (musicians, filmmakers) and those who distribute it (record labels, film companies) deserve to be compensated for their work."
School administrators will take action if they find that copyrighted material is traded illegally through servers like Direct Connect. Mitch Davis, Chief Information Officer for the Department of Information Technology said, "The Information Technology department is trying to find the location of the direct connect server, but it is only intermittently on the network and then never at the same location. If the Direct Connect server is sharing files illegally, then it will be shut down."
So, what can Bowdoin students using KaZaA or Morpheus do to prevent a
potential legal battle? Davis said, "Do not download or have copyrighted
material on your computer that you do not own."
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