RIAA requests file-sharing info from UA

By: Eric Evridge

Posted: 4/30/08

UA administrators recently received a formal request from the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that represents intellectual property and First Amendment rights of the U.S. recording industry, asking that the UA cooperate in addressing illegal file-sharing activities. And like at most universities across the nation, UA students are not happy.

"There's no reason why the RIAA should have the right or ability to do this," said Taylor Hunter, former on-campus resident and senior at the UA.

"How is it not legal to tap phone lines but it's legal to trace down people's IP addresses? It's needless," he said. "I think we could devote our time elsewhere, for a better cause. It's a needless process."

IP addresses are unique addresses that computer networks use to identify and communicate with each other; much like cell phone numbers, physical addresses or home phone lines.

The letter the UA received is requesting, under new RIAA policy, that institutions of higher education preserve all records containing file-sharing activities.

The UA does not immediately give the RIAA what it wants. There is a formal, step-by-step procedure that must be followed, said Scott Flanagin, director of Communications and Outreach, which is a division of Student Affairs at the UA.

"Here's what happens at the systems level all UA systems," he said. "The IT department attempts to identify the individual that was responsible for the Internet connection at the time of the infraction, the individual included in the letter sent to the UA."

From here, the letter is forwarded to that individual.

"The UA does not provide any identity of any individuals and will not unless there is a subpoena. If there is a subpoena, we will provide specific information if we can and if it's available to us," Flanagin said.

"That's some relief, I guess," Hunter said. "At least the UA is not so quick to punish."

In order for the RIAA and UA to cooperate to this point requires a lot of work and red tape, though, Flanagin said.

"They had to go through a lot of steps to get to this point. The RIAA attorneys may have sent a letter to the IT department saying whatever," he said. "They would have to file the letter to the official copy right officer, though. It would have to be registered to the copy right officer, who is in Little Rock, and it must be filed properly."

Once the letter is filed properly there, anything that pertains to UA campus students is forwarded back to Craig Brown from the IT department, and then an attempt to identify the person continues, he said.

"If no connection is found at the time or no person can be identified, then we notify the copy right officer and nothing more is done on our campus," Flanagin said.

How the UA identifies students breaking the rules is unclear.

"There's no way to know," Flanagin said, when asked if there was a problem with students using another student's computer to illegally share or download music. "It's like open Internet networks - there's no way to know."

Students should be aware that the UA doesn't give any legal advice and students should consult a personal lawyer should they receive a letter, he said.

An article published late last year highlighted the constitutional battle between downloaders and prosecutors.

Ned Snow, an assistant professor at the UA, argued in an article titled "Copytraps" that the automatic penalties for downloading illegally violate the First Amendment and are far too harsh.

Internet users face "copytraps," which is to say that when users encounter Web sites that falsely represent something as legal, sometimes there's no way of knowing whether the downloading is actually illegal.

"The very potential for 'copytraps,' with automatic penalties assessed against the innocent downloader, raises First Amendment concern," Snow said in the article. "The First Amendment comes into play because downloading is a form of speech. Downloading is the same as copying, and copying is a form of expression."

The argument continues saying that legal downloading is hindered by the fear of downloading illegally by mistake. The "automatic and severe" punishment of innocent downloaders makes Internet users wary to download legal content.

"Internet users who are aware of the law or who have fallen victim to a 'copytrap,' are much more wary of sites purporting to offer legal downloads," Snow said in the article.

The reluctance and wariness to download formulates Snow's argument. "Copytraps" might inhibit users from downloading legal material, and that inhibition is a clear restraint on speech protected by the First Amendment, according to the article.

Snow said most Internet users trust Web site operators to determine if their content is legal or not.

"Most Internet users continue to download without inhibition," he said in the article. "We haven't seen significant decreases in legal downloading. But that fact doesn't matter in the eyes of the law. First Amendment law makes it clear that the possibility of inhibition is sufficient to find a law unconstitutional. And that possibility is glaringly evident in the download context."

"Sounds solid to me," Hunter said. "It makes sense. Then again, I download music illegally and am a considered 'criminal' by law. Pretty ridiculous in my opinion. There are way better things to do with the time and money spent on this."

The recording industry loses revenue based on two forms of piracy: street piracy, the manufacture and sale of counterfeit CDs, and online piracy, illegally copying and downloading media, according to the RIAA Web site.

The Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that music piracy causes $12.5 billion in economic losses every year while more than 71,000 jobs are lost.

Though the RIAA admits calculating losses for online piracy is difficult, it states the "pirate marketplace currently dwarfs the legal marketplace," and that means investment into new music is compromised.