So much for having a dedication to education.
According to the school’s lawyer, Michael Scott Fern, Oklahoma State University on Tuesday apparently decided to forward the names of students accused of illegal file-sharing by the RIAA.
He said the university handed over all 11 names to comply with a court order in a lawsuit brought by the RIAA, which accuses the students of unlawfully downloading copyrighted recordings via the school’s servers.
"We transmitted the information to plaintiff’s attorneys," Fern said in a telephone interview."We sent it out today."
The RIAA has issues dozens of subpoenas to universities nationwide. Most comply and supply the identity of their students after giving the pupils a chance to quash the subpoena at their own expense. RIAA detectives easily learn of the illegal downloading activity by logging on to P2P networks such as KaZaA, where users’ shared folders are visible to all.
The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 for unlawful downloading. Most settle out of court for a few thousand dollars. The RIAA said in court documents in the Oklahoma State case that it was willing to negotiate individual settlements.
Only one RIAA case against an individual has gone to trial. A Minnesota federal jury in October awarded the RIAA — the record companies’ industry lobbying group — $222,000 after concluding Jammie Thomas pilfered two dozen songs on KaZaA.
Few universities fight the RIAA on their students’ behalf.
One that is doing so is the University of Oregon. Among other things, Oregon’s attorney general claims disclosing the names is a violation of the students’ privacy and that it’s impossible to know for sure if a given student was the actual one doing the downloading.
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