Rich Fiscus
30 Sep 2007 14:30
Wendy Seltzer, founder of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse - a project which brings together law clinics from several prominent law schools and the EFF to educate individuals about their rights with regard to intellectual property and fair use, recently spoke at Cornell University advising universities to fight attempted lawsuits against students for illegal file sharing.
Although she addressed the established problems with identifying users by IP address, that wasn't the main focus of her talk. Instead, she concentrated the potential damage to both universities and students that could result from cooperation, or at Limited resistance.
By Seltzer's reasoning, there's a lot more at stake than the legal problems of a small percentage of college students. In her words, universities should resist on the grounds that the lawsuits place an "undue burden" on them by pitting school administration against the students they're supposed to serve. She argues that when they're forced to share private information about students with RIAA lawyers they risk creating an atmosphere counter to the goal of academic opennes that's critical to education.
She also addressed measures that RIAA lobbyists recently attempted to get passed that would have required schools to monitor their networks for file sharing activity to issue annual reports to the federal government to produce a list of schools with the most copyright infringement, saying "Why Congress should be getting into the business of naming names and pointing fingers is beyond me."
Although the measure was withdrawn after a public outcry, it certainly serves as a reminder that the RIAA feels that their profits are the responsibility of everyone, and such an overwhelming public interest that little things like due process and evidence aren't particularly important.
Source: Ars Technica