I can’t remember the last time I paid for an album. But then again, I wasn’t accused of stealing music either.
Marc Fedoras ’09 is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for $135,000 at a whopping $750 per song for sharing his music online. He will mostly likely settle out of court for a more manageable, but still hefty, $3,000, as offered by the RIAA.
The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes pirating of copyrighted music illegal. The only exception to this rule is if the copy is made for your own personal use.
The act also has a clause that allows copyright owners to obtain a federal subpoena by merely making an allegation of copyright infringement.
However, this law is almost impossible to enforce. When laws cannot be enforced uniformly, they will often be enforced unevenly and unjustly. College campuses are a prime example.
Fairfield is one of the universities that has agreed to send the names of students who downloaded illegally to the RIAA. Yet, not all colleges do. Fairfield has simply decided to sacrifice student privacy to try and take what they believe is the higher moral ground.
Most campus computer networks have the ability to shuffle their Internet Protocols (IP) numbers among several individuals on a regular basis, a common practice among Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
These IP numbers are used to trace the user who downloaded the music. Colleges who shuffle their IP numbers can honestly say that they have no idea who the subpoena is meant for.
In September 2003, MIT and Boston College went to court to support their students and challenged the subpoenas delivered to them by the RIAA.
Both colleges claimed that the RIAA obtained the subpoenas from the wrong court in Washington, D.C., temporarily blocking them before the RIAA refiled them in Boston.
A law that only affects certain people shouldn’t stand. If I went to another school instead of Fairfield, I wouldn’t need to worry about the RIAA suing me for something millions of college students do on a daily basis.
If the RIAA can only go after students whose schools have chosen to cooperate, the law is not being fairly applied. Jim Crow laws were reviled by many as they segregated one race of people. While not nearly on the same level, it is the same concept. Selectively choosing who to prosecute is never fair based on mitigating cicumstances.
Copyright are overused anyway. Under U.S. law, any original work is covered by a copyright, even if a formal notice is not incorporated into the work.
So The Mirror sports and Mirror commentary blogs are both protected under U.S. copyright law. We could sue you if you steal our writings without permission.
The starving artist argument doesn’t really apply either. Often, the artist’s producers or managers will own the copyright and distribution rights. Normally, the songs downloaded are from famous artists who have already made it big.
Illegal downloading actually helps smaller, lesser-known artists by expanding their fan base. Listeners who would not normally buy their music may try it for free, leading to more purchases in the future.
Plus, there is a reason it is called ‘file sharing’ and not ‘file stealing.’
Technically, burning a CD and giving it to your friend is illegal. Yet, I haven’t gotten a letter from the RIAA for my cassettes with songs recorded from the radio when I was a kid.
It is also impractical for the downloader to check every copyright on every song they download. Students assume iTunes is legal because we pay for it. I’m pretty sure no one checks to make sure the songs are properly copyrighted.
The real criminal is the person who uploads the music and shares it with everyone. They are the ones who truly know that the music is illegally being shared. The RIAA focuses its efforts on such people.
Most peer-to-peer programs allow you to check a box saying, ‘Do not share my files.’ If you don’t check this box, you are just an idiot and probably deserve to pay the fines.
I’m sure these new pre-litigation letters won’t have an effect on student downloading. If I hypothetically downloaded music from the campus network, I would still download.
Hey, it’s free music.
But, I would hypothetically make sure I don’t share with others. That is the real problem.
Of course, I don’t think it will happen to me, but I’m sure the Fairfield students who got caught felt the same way.
Editor’s Note: Chris Simmons is The Mirror associate sports editor.
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