The RIAA announced yesterday that it had sent a third wave of 413 pre-litigation settlement letters to 22 universities across the country.
A new wave of the RIAA’s "deterrence program" has begun, with the lobbying group claiming that it has caught students for "illegal file-trafficking" at 22 different college campuses. That’s right, I said "file-trafficking."
In a new twist on things, "file-sharing" has now become "file-trafficking." I guess it’s because everybody likes sharing but, nobody likes traffic (ha ha). It does make for an interesting twist though, for in the perpetual language wars terminology is everything. With this new "file-trafficking" moniker it makes it seems as evil as other traffickers, like the drugs, guns, and other contraband types.
This 3rd wave of the RIAA college offensive targets 413 students at 22 college and university campuses across the country.
Each pre-litigation settlement letter informs the school of a forthcoming copyright infringement suit against one of its students or personnel and requests that university administrators forward that letter to the appropriate network user.
"Without question, this new enforcement initiative has invigorated a meaningful conversation on college campuses about music theft, its consequences and the numerous ways to enjoy legal music,” said Steven Marks, General Counsel and Executive Vice President, RIAA.
“We hope that fans on campuses and administrators recognize the extraordinary legal marketplace for music online now. The question we ask of students is this: with high-quality legal music options available for free or deeply discounted, why take the twin risks of exposing your computer to viruses or spyware by downloading from an illegal site or exposing yourself to a costly lawsuit?"
To back up its efforts the RIAA cites a study from Spring 2006 which found that "…more than half of college students download music and movies illegally" using P2P and file-sharing services but, the study doesn’t say however, how many of these students did so OFF CAMPUS or outside of the campus network.
Jim Davis, UCLA’s chief technology officer, noted that most of the infringement complaints his school receives involve student residency halls, where approximately only 20% of the student population resides.
"Far more students live off-campus, making them part of the great majority of students who use commercial Internet service providers…outside of our purview," Davis said.
So for UCLA it would appear that about 80% of its student body lives off-campus. Does that mean that the RIAA is making all this fuss over little more than less than 20% of the student body? It makes you wonder what the numbers are at other college campuses where the RIAA has sent out notices to.
So what’s the breakdown on the new wave of letters?
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Especially if you only can play it where and when they say so.
“with high-quality legal music options available for free or deeply discounted”
Because a buck a song is a great deal. Right.
Probably because community colleges offer no on-campus housing.
They basically ought to say they’re targeting students who live on campus.
Cover me in honey and call me Pooh Bait but tain’t no community colleges on the list…And all the academic elitests thought them no SAT schools were useless.. haha
Ps..cuz when you factor in the off campus nature of those kinds of colleges combined with the off campus population of the schools mentioned it is clear the RIAA has its head planted firmly up its butt.