Saturday, July 28, 2007

University of Kansas Refuses to Forward RIAA Letters

It has been reported by the University Daily Kansan that the University of Kansas has refused to forward the RIAA's "early settlement" letters. (Thank you to the Chronicle of Higher Education for reporting on it, and to Slashdot for reporting on the Chronicle of Higher Education's coverage):

University won't release names to recording industry

Spokesman says KU will not be third party in legal cases

The University is refusing to forward pre-litigation letters from the recording industry to it’s students on the grounds that doing so could be an invasion of student privacy.

Earlier this month, the Recording Industry Association of America sent 408 pre-litigation settlement letters to 23 universities. The University of Kansas will notify individual students by mail if it received a complaint connected to a student’s IP address. The University will not, however, forward students the RIAA pre-litigation letter, which gives them the opportunity to settle out of court.

Jenny Mehmedovic, coordinator for information and technology policy and planning, said under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the University has no obligation to forward the letters to students. It also will not release any identifying information without a court order or subpoena.

Complete article


Commentary & discussion:

Chronicle of Higher Education
Slashdot
p2pnet



Keywords: digital copyright online law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

5 comments:

Jadeic said...

From over here in the UK the sheer scale of your University network is hard to grasp. However, from the few reports that do receive any media coverage there seems to be a polarisation of attitudes by the University administrations on this issue. I do sense though that rather more are following the University of Kansas line and this despite the very real threat that Congress will sanction tighter controls on the internet access provided by state education establishments

Reluctant Raconteur said...

The KU 'one strike' rule makes more sense now. It is their version of a takedown notice. Instead of removing the offending content they remove the offender.

AMD FanBoi said...

Hey KU,

How about doing more than waiting for a court order or subpoena? How about fighting those cases, on behalf of your students, at the ex parte stage where both the RIAA, and the opposition to it, is the weakest? That would be of real service to the privacy and safety of your students!

Chris said...

As a 3L at a school that has several clinical programs that are popular with our students. I think it would be a great service if one of the clinical programs would take these cases on behalf of our students (we've over 50,000 of them). Is anyone aware of any law school program currently doing this?

raybeckerman said...

I agree with you, schwammo, and Prof. Nesson and Wendy Seltzer of Harvard Law School have urged just that.