[Infowarrior] - Second university refuses to hand student info to RIAA

[Richard Forno]

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UMS refuses to hand student info to RIAA

By: Tony Reaves
Posted: 3/26/07

The University of Maine System has refused a request from the Recording
Industry Association of America to produce names of students who allegedly
downloaded copyrighted materials.

The system has also opted not to forward the RIAA's pre-litigation letters
offering settlements to those students, although the schools those students
attend will inform their students of the letters and give them a chance to
pick up the letters if they so choose.

At the University of Maine, students with pending RIAA lawsuits were told on
Friday.

"It's not the university's role to, in effect, serve papers on our students
for another party," John Diamond, spokesman for the university system, said
of the decision.

At the same time, the university has ensured those students get a chance to
settle. "We want our students to be aware of it, but we do not feel that it
is our obligation to be the arm of the RIAA beyond simply sharing the
information," Diamond said.

On Wednesday, the RIAA sent 27 letters to the UMS to forward to its students
offering settlements before their alleged music piracy could go to court.
The letters direct students to the Web site http://www.p2plawsuits.com,
where students can admit guilt and settle for an amount far lower than the
RIAA could get in court.

Of the 27 letters, 14 went to UMaine students. The remaining 13 went to
students at every other UMS school except Farmington and Augusta.

The RIAA sent the system only the numerical Internet addresses of students
the industry has accused of copyright violations. They asked the UMS to
provide the names of those students.

Diamond said the RIAA's request for student information asks the system to
violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which bars the UMS
from divulging information not considered public.

The Internet addresses the university assigns to students accessing the
network is not public. Despite this, some institutions have given up their
students' names to avoid court fees.

"The only way the RIAA can get that information is if the RIAA takes us to
court to get those names," Diamond said.

According to Jon Ippolito, a UMaine new media professor and associate
curator of media arts at the Guggenheim Museum, the university has taken a
principled stance.

"[The RIAA] have so many lawyers that they can afford to send frivolous
subpoenas right and left, and the mere threat to do so has caused some
universities to cave right away," said Ippolito, an expert on digital media.

On Thursday, Ippolito sent a letter to the university system urging
administrators not to reveal students' identities to the RIAA.

Ippolito said the practice of subpoenaing universities won't necessarily
hold water in court, and was critical of the RIAA's newest tactics with
colleges, a policy he called "mafia-like."

"They want to bully universities into exposing students and also bully
students directly into signing onto a discount," Ippolito said. "There's no
legal process and that's the end of the story."

According to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 bill meant to
protect copyrighted material in the digital age, the university is not
responsible for copyright violations on its network. The university system
needs only to make sure students delete any copyrighted works found by an
outside agency such as the RIAA. © Copyright 2007 Maine Campus