2008 Woodie Awards
RIAA's tactics resisted by students
Staff Editorial
Issue date: 1/24/08 Section: Soap Box
The University of Maine School of Law is giving the University of Maine system the status of the first to challenge the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for lawsuits against their students. Instead of settling with the RIAA, the UMaine School of Law is defending students in court.
The RIAA loses money from lawsuits when challenged in court. Typically, students are encouraged to settle for amounts of money which, while large, are often smaller than the sums required to hire a lawyer and pay court fees.
With Maine Law's assistance, legal questions about the RIAA's approaches may finally be resolved. For one, many legal experts have questioned the use of "John Doe" subpoenas, which are essentially blanket subpoenas that some believe deprive students of their rights to contest lawsuits in their early stages.
Because no one has taken it upon themselves to take the issue to court, the legality of these tactics has not been tested. If they're found out of line by a court of law, we could see severe changes in the approach the RIAA uses in regards to tackling the issue of copyright violations, which have hit UMaine students several times in the past two years.
This is no excuse for file sharers to slay the fatted calf. This activity is still illegal. However, the act of filesharing has been met with a traditionally inappropriate response by the RIAA - charges of $4,000 for a song available on iTunes for 99 cents are unreasonable, and depriving students the right to due process in order to obtain these fees is beyond the pale.
The RIAA loses money from lawsuits when challenged in court. Typically, students are encouraged to settle for amounts of money which, while large, are often smaller than the sums required to hire a lawyer and pay court fees.
With Maine Law's assistance, legal questions about the RIAA's approaches may finally be resolved. For one, many legal experts have questioned the use of "John Doe" subpoenas, which are essentially blanket subpoenas that some believe deprive students of their rights to contest lawsuits in their early stages.
Because no one has taken it upon themselves to take the issue to court, the legality of these tactics has not been tested. If they're found out of line by a court of law, we could see severe changes in the approach the RIAA uses in regards to tackling the issue of copyright violations, which have hit UMaine students several times in the past two years.
This is no excuse for file sharers to slay the fatted calf. This activity is still illegal. However, the act of filesharing has been met with a traditionally inappropriate response by the RIAA - charges of $4,000 for a song available on iTunes for 99 cents are unreasonable, and depriving students the right to due process in order to obtain these fees is beyond the pale.
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