James Delahunty
13 Apr 2005 10:29
More than 400 college students will be sued for making thousands of copyrighted works available on an experimental network called Internet2. With an average broadband connection, the average person could download a movie in a matter of hours and a song in about a minute, compared to 5 minutes to download a movie and 20 seconds per song on Internet2. The trading was done on software called i2hub which was designed especially for Internet2.
"Internet2 is increasingly becoming the network of choice for students looking to steal songs and other copyrighted works on a massive scale," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA is responsible for suing about 9,000 P2P users to date. They like to target students because they believe it sets an example in universities all over the U.S.
On Monday, users logged onto i2hub were sharing 99TB of files apparently. Dan Glickman, head of the Motion Picture Association of America said this 99TB of data was the equivalent of an entire video-rental store. The RIAA said it has sued 405 students at 18 schools but the MPAA declined to reveal how many it has sued. The creators of the software used have not been sued but Glickman threatened them by saying, "We know who you are, and we strongly encourage you to stop what you are doing."
The entertainment industry has already attempted to sue creators of P2P software with no luck and the Supreme Court is set to rule on the MGM vs. Grokster case by June.
Source:
Reuters