An email from Dean Reitman that we got this morning regarding music downloading:
Dear Tufts Students,
I am writing to tell you about the latest developments at Tufts regarding illegal downloading of music and video files.
I have written to you about this before – and know that some of you have not considered that information about copyright violation applied to you because you were “only downloading” (as opposed to making copyright protected files on your computer available to others). It is true that the music industry, represented by RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, had primarily pursued those whom they discovered were making their files available to others, even though unauthorized downloading is also illegal. Also, while many colleges in the area and elsewhere had received subpoenas from RIAA in the past, Tufts had not and there were many who thought that there would never be lawsuits here.
This summer, Tufts was served six subpoenas issued by the federal district court, demanding that the university provide the identity of five members of the Class of 2008 and one member of the Class of 2007 to the attorneys representing RIAA in copyright infringement cases. These six students’ IP addresses had been identified by RIAA investigators as allegedly showing activity of music or video file downloading or uploading. I informed these students about the subpoenas and that the university had no choice but to comply with the court order and that they should be in touch with the attorneys who had initiated the lawsuits against them. Several were very surprised that their IP addresses had been selected since they had downloaded only a few music files. It appears that the addresses were selected randomly.
Before the deadline for the University to comply with the subpoena, we were informed by plaintiff’s counsel that four of the six students had agreed to financial settlements with RIAA and that we should exclude them from the information that we had to provide. I have been told that the settlements ranged from $3,500 to $5,000, plus associated attorney fees to negotiate the settlements. The remaining two cases proceeded after RIAA attorneys received the court mandated information.
So for those of you for whom ethical behavior is not sufficient motivation to refrain from copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property, note that RIAA seems to be committed to pursuing violations and will likely initiate more lawsuits. What you do on the web is quite public. The University can neither protect you nor intervene on your behalf if you (or your IP address) are named in a lawsuit. The university also restricts account privileges for more than 100 students each year for violations of the Responsible Use Policy for the University’s Electronic Resources, the majority of which are copyright violation cases reported to Tufts Computing. You should read the policy and make sure that you understand its provisions.
The University continues to provide a subscription to CDIGIX, a legal music download service, to all enrolled students. The CDIGIX product that is provided at no cost is not perfect – it doesn’t work with Apple machines (we found no service that works on both Apple and PC platforms) and you have to pay a fee for music that you want to “own” and download to most portable devices or burn to CDs. But for PC users, if there is music that you want to listen to on desktop and laptop machines but don’t need to “own,” the CDIGIX subscription that is provided to you is legal and safe. You can find out more about the service by going to www.cdigix.com.
Tufts does not benefit financially in providing this service to you. The cost is underwritten by an anonymous outside sponsor. We provide it, as does the sponsor, to encourage ethical behavior. There are also many other legal, on-line music download services available. Last year, The Daily ran a comprehensive survey of the various services, along with the pros and cons of each. Maybe the paper will do this again this year. If not, you can find information about pay for music services in many places on the internet or by looking for last year’s Daily article in the paper’s on-line archives.
Good listening,
Bruce Reitman
Dean of Students
Dear Tufts Students,
I am writing to tell you about the latest developments at Tufts regarding illegal downloading of music and video files.
I have written to you about this before – and know that some of you have not considered that information about copyright violation applied to you because you were “only downloading” (as opposed to making copyright protected files on your computer available to others). It is true that the music industry, represented by RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, had primarily pursued those whom they discovered were making their files available to others, even though unauthorized downloading is also illegal. Also, while many colleges in the area and elsewhere had received subpoenas from RIAA in the past, Tufts had not and there were many who thought that there would never be lawsuits here.
This summer, Tufts was served six subpoenas issued by the federal district court, demanding that the university provide the identity of five members of the Class of 2008 and one member of the Class of 2007 to the attorneys representing RIAA in copyright infringement cases. These six students’ IP addresses had been identified by RIAA investigators as allegedly showing activity of music or video file downloading or uploading. I informed these students about the subpoenas and that the university had no choice but to comply with the court order and that they should be in touch with the attorneys who had initiated the lawsuits against them. Several were very surprised that their IP addresses had been selected since they had downloaded only a few music files. It appears that the addresses were selected randomly.
Before the deadline for the University to comply with the subpoena, we were informed by plaintiff’s counsel that four of the six students had agreed to financial settlements with RIAA and that we should exclude them from the information that we had to provide. I have been told that the settlements ranged from $3,500 to $5,000, plus associated attorney fees to negotiate the settlements. The remaining two cases proceeded after RIAA attorneys received the court mandated information.
So for those of you for whom ethical behavior is not sufficient motivation to refrain from copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property, note that RIAA seems to be committed to pursuing violations and will likely initiate more lawsuits. What you do on the web is quite public. The University can neither protect you nor intervene on your behalf if you (or your IP address) are named in a lawsuit. The university also restricts account privileges for more than 100 students each year for violations of the Responsible Use Policy for the University’s Electronic Resources, the majority of which are copyright violation cases reported to Tufts Computing. You should read the policy and make sure that you understand its provisions.
The University continues to provide a subscription to CDIGIX, a legal music download service, to all enrolled students. The CDIGIX product that is provided at no cost is not perfect – it doesn’t work with Apple machines (we found no service that works on both Apple and PC platforms) and you have to pay a fee for music that you want to “own” and download to most portable devices or burn to CDs. But for PC users, if there is music that you want to listen to on desktop and laptop machines but don’t need to “own,” the CDIGIX subscription that is provided to you is legal and safe. You can find out more about the service by going to www.cdigix.com.
Tufts does not benefit financially in providing this service to you. The cost is underwritten by an anonymous outside sponsor. We provide it, as does the sponsor, to encourage ethical behavior. There are also many other legal, on-line music download services available. Last year, The Daily ran a comprehensive survey of the various services, along with the pros and cons of each. Maybe the paper will do this again this year. If not, you can find information about pay for music services in many places on the internet or by looking for last year’s Daily article in the paper’s on-line archives.
Good listening,
Bruce Reitman
Dean of Students
posted by Anonymous at
9:25 AM
1 Comments:
"For those of you for whom ethical behavior is not sufficient motivation to refrain from copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property" -- OUCH, Dean Reitman! Sounds like he's hoping that will be a small minority of the undergraduate population... :)
By
emily, at 10:47 AM
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