RIAA takes BU students all the way to the Court
Evelyn Ratigan
Issue date: 5/1/08 Section: News
Jim Stone, the director of consulting services at Boston University's Office of Information Technology, said he spends a "ridiculous" amount of time each day dealing with lawyers, parents, students, subpoenas, lawsuits and law firms up in arms about RIAA copyright infringement law suits.
"Doing my job is the worst nightmare you could imagine," he said at the Student Union's digital rights panel discussion Monday. "I'm probably the most universally hated administrator on this campus because of it. I would like nothing better than to be out of this business."
Stone is involved in sending out the Recording Industry Association of America's pre-litigation letters to BU students who have been caught illegally sharing copyright materials over peer-to-peer networks.
The RIAA has sent thousands of such letters to universities across the country, asking administrators to pass on both cease and desist orders and notice of possible lawsuits. Because universities manage Internet services available to on-campus students, the RIAA reasons they can match up data the association collects with Internet use records to help the RIAA identity anonymous file sharers.
After the letters are sent out, Stone faces the heavy task of dealing with the subpoenas and lawsuits that follow. He is the go-between for the Dean of Students Office and the university's general counsel, the office that sends legal notices to students and deals with their aftermath.
"I want to make it clear to students that the university does not monitor the network," Stone said at the discussion, though he added he's often accused of doing just that. Seventeen outside agencies monitor the networks and send the pre-litigation letters to the university.
"Philosophically, BU doesn't want to stop or prevent students from doing whatever they want to do on the network," he said. "We aren't going to go out and try to play a cat-and-mouse game."
THE MOUSE
In summer 2007, College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Paul Sawaya created a Facebook application called Jukebox, because, in his words, there was "no good way to put music on your profile page." The program allowed other users to post links to websites offering music for listening, and in some cases, downloading.
"Doing my job is the worst nightmare you could imagine," he said at the Student Union's digital rights panel discussion Monday. "I'm probably the most universally hated administrator on this campus because of it. I would like nothing better than to be out of this business."
Stone is involved in sending out the Recording Industry Association of America's pre-litigation letters to BU students who have been caught illegally sharing copyright materials over peer-to-peer networks.
The RIAA has sent thousands of such letters to universities across the country, asking administrators to pass on both cease and desist orders and notice of possible lawsuits. Because universities manage Internet services available to on-campus students, the RIAA reasons they can match up data the association collects with Internet use records to help the RIAA identity anonymous file sharers.
After the letters are sent out, Stone faces the heavy task of dealing with the subpoenas and lawsuits that follow. He is the go-between for the Dean of Students Office and the university's general counsel, the office that sends legal notices to students and deals with their aftermath.
"I want to make it clear to students that the university does not monitor the network," Stone said at the discussion, though he added he's often accused of doing just that. Seventeen outside agencies monitor the networks and send the pre-litigation letters to the university.
"Philosophically, BU doesn't want to stop or prevent students from doing whatever they want to do on the network," he said. "We aren't going to go out and try to play a cat-and-mouse game."
THE MOUSE
In summer 2007, College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Paul Sawaya created a Facebook application called Jukebox, because, in his words, there was "no good way to put music on your profile page." The program allowed other users to post links to websites offering music for listening, and in some cases, downloading.
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tonsotunes
posted 5/01/08 @ 9:06 PM EST
Can there ever be a more empty and worthless cause than fighting for
the right for artists not to be paid?
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