As the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continues to send letters to universities whose students are accused of illegal file sharing, the absence of a certain school from its mailing list has raised some eyebrows.
Harvard University professors offered public criticism of the RIAA's tactics last year, and since then the industry has not sent notices to the school. Many wonder if the organization is staying away from the university in order to avoid a legal battle over its aggressive tactics.
The RIAA sends pre-litigation letters to schools when it identifies Internet protocol (IP) addresses that have illegally shared copyrighted material. Typically, a college that receives such a notice can tie each implicated IP address to a particular student user, and administrators usually forward each letter to the person they suspect of illegal file sharing. Tufts follows this procedure when definitive identifications are possible.
The extent to which schools relinquish information about their students depends on their individual policies. In a statement released on July 9, 2007 in the newsletter of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law Professors Charles Nesson and John Palfrey argued against cooperating with the RIAA.
"The university has no legal obligation to deliver the RIAA's messages. It should do so only if it believes that's consonant with the university's mission. We believe it is not," the professors wrote.
The RIAA, which had sent pre-litigation letters to Harvard before the professors released their statement, has since mailed batches of letters to most major Boston-area universities, but has left Harvard alone.
Nesson is currently serving as the defense attorney for a Boston University student being sued by the RIAA.
On the Hill, in response to a subpoena the RIAA filed on July 7 against 11 Tufts students, the university refused to hand over the identities of two of the students because administrators claimed they could not definitively determine which students had used the IP addresses.
"If [an address] that [has] been identified by the RIAA as hosting copyrighted material looks unusual in that it does not look like it came from a specific student, we do not hand over the information," Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman said.
A spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights advocacy group, said forwarding the letters can actually benefit students. If students do not settle with the RIAA after receiving pre-litigation letters, an option that usually costs a few thousand dollars, they can face lawsuits worth hundreds of thousands.
"Some universities have refused to forward [pre-litigation letters], and they have no obligation. But it does put people in a spot because a pre-litigation letter could save a student time and money," Rebecca Jeschke, media relations coordinator for the EFF, told the Daily.
But the RIAA has simply left Harvard students alone since the professors there disputed the industry's conduct.
Reitman said that as long as the RIAA continues to send letters to Tufts, the administration will pass them along to students.
"Whether the university thinks that the practices of the RIAA are effective or not in mitigating downloading is a moot point because we have no choice but to comply with a court-issued subpoena," Reitman said, referring to the fact that if a file-sharing case goes to court, the university can be forced to hand over information.
Because of this potential obligation, Reitman said, Tufts chooses to forward pre-litigation letters and give accused students the most time to decide how to respond.
Almost all students who receive letters from the RIAA accept the discounted settlements. The BU student whom Nesson is now defending faces a lawsuit worth over $1 million.
The RIAA has received criticism from a number of sources over its legal tactics, which are seen as encouraging accused file sharers to avoid taking cases to court.
"The settlement letters are an attempt to short-circuit the legal process, and it may force students to settle even when they haven't done anything," Jeschke said.
In a rebuke of the RIAA's tactics, the University of Maine has refused to forward pre-litigation notices to its students.
"Our position is that the University of Maine system does not believe it is appropriate to serve as the service arm of the RIAA," university spokesperson John Diamond told the Daily.
The RIAA has also earned scorn for how it gathers information on the people it accuses of illegal sharing. MediaSentry, the company the RIAA employs to investigate downloading, does not have a private investigation license in Massachusetts.
In London-Sire v. Doe 1, the RIAA's case against a BU student, the defense has mentioned that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has ordered MediaSentry to cease and desist its operations, but the recording industry still uses the contractor to investigate students' habits.
When Tufts refused to identify the users of two IP addresses this summer, it said there were 23 possible users for one address and 17 for the other. The industry has since dropped its inquiry into the two addresses.
