Perhaps you’ve never seen a letter from the RIAA. What exactly do they say when their use of P2P software reveals the IP address of another P2P user–one on a campus network?
To give you a better sense of the tone (no pun intended), here’s one of the four notes I received yesterday. These aren’t DMCA-based “takedown” notices (we have a finely-tuned process in place for insuring compliance with those requests). No, this letter is an example of the RIAA reaching for something different and it’s surely no accident that the DMCA isn’t referenced:
Dear __________:
I am an attorney with the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (“RIAA”). The RIAA is a trade association whose member record companies create, manufacture, and/or distribute the majority of all legitimate sound recordings sold and distributed in the United States.
I am writing to alert you to a forthcoming subpoena that may be served on you. The subpoena seeks identifying information for a subscriber of your network who has infringed our members’ copyrighted sound recordings. The subpoena will request documents that identify the name, current (and permanent) addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and MAC (Media Access Control) address of the user located at the following IP address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx on xx Sep 2007 xx:00:1x xDT (GMT -xxxx).
In advance of serving a subpoena on you, our outside counsel will email to you an early settlement letter that we ask you to forward to the user, customer or subscriber. If the individual responds to the letter and settles the claims, we will not need to serve the subpoena on you. However, if that individual does not settle in a timely fashion, then our counsel will need to serve the subpoena. Please preserve all documents and identifying information regarding the user, customer or subscriber in the meantime.
We hope this advance notice has proved helpful. Thank you for your cooperation. Feel free to call if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Carlos Linares
Vice President and Counsel, Anti-Piracy
Recording Industry Association of America, Inc.
1025 F Street, NW
10th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20004
202-775-0101
I don’t know Mr. Linares but I don’t find the “read-only” tone of his letter very engaging. I’m also not crazy about the way he just assumes I’ll do the research to identify his P2P buddy and then serve as courier for his messages. And no mention of compensating me for running those errands, either. Is this a great country or what?
Ironically I suppose, I was indeed thinking of the RIAA yesterday as I wrote my Congressman asking that he do whatever he could to strip Section 494 from H.R. 4137 (College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007). That bill is being marked up today (November 14th) in the House Committee on Education and Labor.
If you haven’t heard about Section 494 you’re missing a attempted robbery in progress: colleges and universities will have to offer “technology-based deterrents” to file-sharing under pain of losing all federal financial aid.”
As usual, Ars Technica has it right:
“… Section 494 of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 is entitled “Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention” that could have just as easily been called “Motion Picture and Recording Industry Subsidies,” as it could force schools into signing up for subscription-based services like Napster and Rhapsody.”
Pay attention to this bill and be ready to take action if Section 494 emerges intact from the Committee.
Update (11/16/07): The bill (with section 494 intact and untouched) made it out of committee. Now is the time to contact your member of Congress.
For a bit of background, let me recommend this site:
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com
where attorneys Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman “…collect and share information about the wave of sham copyright infringement lawsuits brought by four large record companies to abuse the American judicial system, distort copyright law, and frighten ordinary working people and their children.”