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File sharing application protects students from lawsuits |
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Friday, 22 April 2005 |
File
sharing application protects students from lawsuits
Rocket (subscription) - Slippery Rock,PA,USA
The question is asked 10 times a day. What file sharing program should I
use? Now kids, you have to know that file sharing is bad, but if you're going to
share files then you need to know a little background information about the
legal issues involved. I know you space-monkeys don't really care though, so
I'll make it short, sweet, and current.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued quite a few people
in the past over MP3s. First it went after Napster and was successful. The RIAA
couldn't sue Kazaa directly because the servers are overseas, so they started
suing users of Kazaa and threatening universities and other such shenanigans.
The lawsuits against users were successful. Like it or not, that is as it should
be, it's the law.
Now hold on, I didn't say that I agree with RIAA. Calm down, I'm getting there.
Those suits were random. Now, the RIAA has adopted the strategy that they'll
only sue the people who do it the most. That's a little fairer, considering that
they ended up suing a 12-year-old girl last time. Come on guys!
Most recently, the RIAA filed suit against 405 students in 18 universities
including Pitt and CMU for using the Internet2 to share files. Now, I believe
that there's a little more to this round of suits than meets the eye.
First off, next to no one knows about Internet2. Why? Because it's so exclusive.
The Internet2 is a completely optical network. That's computer talk for really
freaking sweet. This thing runs faster than an education major from the cops at
a frat party. These students were trading songs at about 15,000 times the speed
of a typical broadband connection. You don't have to be Pavlov's MP3 player to
salivate at that one.
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