University of Wisconsin’s Associate Dean of Student Development Jodi Thesing-Ritter makes the comment in recent article in The Spectator, the university’s student newspaper.
There’s a disturbing comment that has been made in the University of Wisconsin’s student newspaper, The Spectator, which confirms our worst fears about the RIAA’s college campus piracy crackdown. The school’s Associate Dean of Student Development Jodi Thesing-Ritter says that some students have dropped out of school due to the exorbitant pre-litigation “settlement” fees demanded by the RIAA from those accused of illegal file-sharing.
“It’s been really hard to have to be the one to tell them they are facing this lawsuit,” she said. Thesing-Ritter goes on to note that an undisclosed number of students have had to drop out of school in order to come up with the money to pay their legal fees.
Considering that students are of limited financial means it’s unfortunate to hear people like Thesing-Ritter so cavalierly go on to say that each case is simply a matter of students having to take responsibility for their actions.
“The reality is that there are consequences to these actions,” Thesing-Ritter said. She hopes these students go and tell everyone they know about their story so others realize it could happen to them.
Talk about unsettling.
The RIAA doesn’t rely on carefully collected evidence compiled by a unbiased LEGAL private investigator, but rather on a company called MediaSentry that lacks the proper credentials required to conduct investigative activities in any state. To then be able to use this ILLEGALLY OBTAINED evidence to threaten poor students with legal action if they don’t cough up $3000 bucks is the real crime here. So is the fact that Thesing-Ritter doesn’t think that students deserve their day in court.
Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson is suing Sony BMG Music and the RIAA for abuse of process across state and federal jurisdictions. Specifically, he argues that the RIAA is abusing the law “to advance ulterior motives” and that it is simply trying to intimidate individuals rather than seek redress for perceived economic losses.
He accuses them of trying to unlawfully sacrifice defendants in order “to intimidate other accused infringers into settling without exercising their constitutional right to have their defenses heard in court.”
He’s right.
Congress has already passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act requiring colleges and universities to determine how they will fight illegal file-sharing on campus, and which Bush promptly signed into law. It’s passage only ensures that more students will be caught up in the RIAA dragnet, especially if schools become actively involved in helping it fight campus copyright infringement.
How many student dropouts are we willing to tolerate in the meantime? Surely this toll on society is much greater than the sharing of a few albums.
jared@zeropaid.com
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