George Washington Univ. students next to feel RIAA's wrath
Nineteen students at George Washington University are about to become the next targets of the recording industry's wrath.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on October 11 approved subpoenas to uncover the identity of the 19 "John Does" listed as defendants by the Recording Industry Association of America.
A key ingredient in Beer Pong
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (best known for her role in the Microsoft antitrust trial) granted the RIAA's request to serve the university with an immediate subpoena.
She required that George Washington University to tell its students--or faculty or staff if they're the ones behind the IP addresses in question--about the existence of the subpoenas in five business days.
She also gave the school and any of the John Does 25 days to respond with a legal motion opposing the subpoena. The RIAA had suggested only 15 days.
The RIAA's full list of allegedly infringing IP addresses and dates is below. One IP address, 161.253.5.32, notably contributed a post to Wikihow.com warning not to light on fire a ping pong ball used in the "beer pong" drinking game "because it has alchol (sic) residue on it and it will burst into flames."
To be fair to the current owner of 161.253.5.32, perhaps the university rotates IP addresses instead of assigning fixed ones to each student.
Other students are fighting back against the RIAA, sometimes with some success. Some Florida students have argued that they shouldn't all have been named as defendants in a single lawsuit. Some courts have denied the record labels' requests for ex parte orders, meaning that only the RIAA is present in the courtroom.
And on Tuesday, seven alleged file-sharers at North Carolina State University banded together to file a motion jointly opposing an RIAA John Doe subpoena--a useful tactic that lets them share the costs of a legal defense.
Doe # 1 IP Address: 128.164.100.11 2007-02-02 05:59:17 EST Doe # 2 IP Address: 128.164.100.11 2007-03-05 04:29:42 EST Doe # 3 IP Address: 128.164.100.158 2007-04-14 16:57:39 EDT Doe # 4 IP Address: 128.164.100.22 2007-03-26 02:02:52 EDT Doe # 5 IP Address: 128.164.100.72 2007-05-10 00:24:36 EDT Doe # 6 IP Address: 128.164.100.76 2007-05-07 00:18:52 EDT Doe # 7 IP Address: 128.164.100.9 2007-04-29 18:19:00 EDT Doe # 8 IP Address: 128.164.102.11 2007-03-25 17:28:46 EDT Doe # 9 IP Address: 128.164.102.170 2007-02-27 20:13:57 EST Doe # 10 IP Address: 128.164.102.177 2007-03-07 15:52:17 EST Doe # 11 IP Address: 128.164.102.65 2007-04-13 10:28:59 EDT Doe # 12 IP Address: 128.164.102.86 2007-04-11 04:40:34 EDT Doe # 13 IP Address: 161.253.19.181 2007-03-24 14:31:00 EDT Doe # 14 IP Address: 161.253.34.17 2007-05-07 10:05:05 EDT Doe # 15 IP Address: 161.253.34.17 2007-05-09 00:40:25 EDT Doe # 16 IP Address: 161.253.34.17 2007-05-09 03:16:12 EDT Doe # 17 IP Address: 161.253.34.17 2007-05-11 18:22:16 EDT Doe # 18 IP Address: 161.253.34.17 2007-05-13 05:27:54 EDT Doe # 19 IP Address: 161.253.5.32 2007-04-02 04:11:49 EDT
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan.
If you poke around I'm sure you can find a law review article or a Supreme Court opinion on point. But my suspicion is that courts permit them (a) in emergency circumstances and (b) when it's a non-final judgment.
Under U.S. law, believe it or not, copyright infringement can fulfill (a)'s requirement. As for (b), the RIAA would argue that all they're trying to do is unmask John Does, who will have subsequent opportunities to defend themselves.
Personally, I'm not a fan of ex parte orders, but I hope this clarifies things a bit. I'd welcome a pointer to a more definitive explanation.
anyway...happens every single day.
My biggest issue, is people still believing defendents have all these rights....they need to update what they teach in schools...those rights are a thing of the past.
THAT THEY ARE HOLLYER THAN THOU KIND OF PEOPLE....
WHERE IN FACT ALL THEY ARE IS A GROUP OF COMPUTER
HACKERS INVADING OR TRYING TO INVADE EVERYBODYS
LIFES.....FIRST OF ALL WITHOUT ANY RYME OR REASON.
AND SECOND OF ALL ITS ILLEGAL SINCE THEY HAVE NO
LEAGAL AUTHORITY WHATS SO EVER SINCE THEY WERE NEVER PART OF OR APPOINTED BY ANY LEGAL OFFICE OF
AUTHORITY OF ANY STATE OR CITY WHAT SO EVER NOR
BY ANY COURT FOR THAT MATTER EITHER...BUT INSTEAD
APPOINTED THEM SELFS THIS POSSITION..WHICH IS A
FORM OF NOT ONLY HARRASMENT BUT STALKING AS WELL
ITS ALSO INVASION OF PRIVACY AND NOT ONLY THAT
IF THEY ROTATE IP ADDRESSES THERES NO WAY THEY CAN PROVE THAT ITS YOUR IP ADDRESS TO BEGIN WITH
YOU KNOW ITS ALSO A FORM OF DISCRIMINATION AS WELL
BY PROFILING AS WELL BY TARGETING 1 TYPE OF PEOPLE
AND IN THIS CASE ITS PEOPLE WHO THEY THINK ARE DOWNLOADING ILEAGALY.... AND ALSO THE RECORDING
ARTISTS DID NOT GIVE THEM PERMISSION TO DO THIS
EITHER YET THEY STILL DO IT WHY BECAUSE THEY CAN
INTIMIDATE CERTAIN PEOPLE TO CONFESSING TO WHAT
EVER THEY WANT WHEATHER IT IS TRUE OR NOT SO THEY HAVE SOMONES IP ADDRESSES THEY WERE NOT AUTHORIZED TO GET THEM FOR WHAT CAUSE AND REASON
AND HOW DID THEY COME TO SUSPECT THAT THEY WERE RIGHT ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO TAKE SOMEONE TO COURT
YOU HAVE TO BE IVESTIGATED FOR AT LEAST 6 MONTHS
AND YOU HAVE TO BE NOTIFYED THAT YOU ARE BEING
INVESTIGATED AS WELL ITS ILEAGAL... BECAUSE THEY
CAN'T JUST VIOLATE YOUR PRIVACY NOT ONLY THAT BUT
THATS COMPUTER BURGLERY AS WELL EVEN COPS NEED
PROBREBO CAUSE JUST TO START A INVESTIVGATION
EVEN THEN HOW DO THEY KNOW THAT IT WAS EVEN YOU
AND NOT SOMEONE ELSE WHO USED YOUR COMPUTER AS WELL SO YOU HAVE A IP ADDRESS WHOS TO SAY THAT ITS NOT ON SOMEONE ELSES COMPUTER AS WELL....
AND WHAT DID THEY SAY TO GET THOSE SUBPENIAS FROM THOSE JUDGES BECAUSE MOST OF THEM WILL NOT GIVE YOU ONE UNLESS YOU CAN PROVE THAT YOU CAN WIN
WITH A GUARRENTEED OUT COME IN YOUR FAVOR
AS WELL
It's all about the money.Even a short boycott would drive the point home better than
SHOUTING
in a tech forum...
I think RIAA should put a stop bands from doing covers.
If the RIAA had their way CDs would cost $100 and be blatant with DRM, and you could only listen to them once and then they would disintegrate, and you would have to go get another.
I've used the Internet to get back music that was scratched to $#!%, do I feel guilty, no: I'm supposed to own the rights to listen to it.
RIAA, start putting TDK's durabis on CDs then we'll talk.
message to all bands affiliated with the RIAA, start selling more t-shirts.
would lighting a beer pong ball on fire really result in it going
ablaze? Beer isn't alcoholic enough for that. Maybe she was playing
beer pong with Bacardi 151?
All these questions .... head spinning ...
I'm singling out Sony has a member of the RIAA with a large marketshare.
Shame on you Sony - RIAA for suing college students and single mothers, falsing using laws aimed at racketeers for this fight.
Shame on you Sony.
lot of crap replies for it: People are complaining as if the RIAA is
going after poor innocent victims who only gave the occasional
song file to a friend. As soon as you create an organized system
of file sharing, you admit that your intent is to move large
amounts of material. When you structure that system with a
specific file type in mind (i.e.: mP3 music files), you shouldn't be
surprised that RIAA would have a problem with it. Yes, CDs cost
too much. Yes, they should be more durable. Yes, artists should
receive more of the money. Yes, the recording industry is a
faceless machine only interested in shareholder profit. Because
these things are true, certain persons feel it is their right, nay,
their duty, to steal (sorry, that's what it is when you don't pay for
it) their music online. That logic would justify someone
wandering into your home and taking YOUR stuff because they
think it's unfair that YOU have it. Come to think of it, that
seems to be a pretty prevalent outlook these days, but I digress.
In terms of copyright, I do feel that RIAA is not allowing free
enough use of the music that IS purchased. If I have purchased
a CD or an online album, I should be allowed to use it in
multiple devices or media, provided that it is for my use and
enjoyment, and not being distributed en masse to my loser
online buddies who can't be bothered to buy it themselves.
Today's reality is that technology has provided a number of ways
to enjoy music or other entertainment files, and convenient
usage of those dictates that there will be more than one copy in
existence in my vehicles, home, or personal player units. I still
possess the originals, but do not regularly use them in order to
preserve them, and it is the possession of the original file source
that is the key to all of it. This is reasonable usage, and not
worthy of prosecution. If RIAA would officially and legally
confirm that this type of personal usage is not a problem, then it
would be easy enough to convince the public at large that they
are well within their rights to prosecute those who effect large-
scale file sharing and distribution through an organized system.
As to the university students, I seem to recall stories about
servers at a number of schools getting completely plugged up
because of P2P activity, so much so that they had to take steps
to ban it. Don't pretend to not know why RIAA is doing this, and
please stop with the "single mothers and the poor" B.S. They
can afford a computer and an internet connection, and seem to
have the time and knowledge needed to use them, so enough of
the rhetoric. It's exactly like speeding; you usually don't get
caught, so you actually start thinking that the law doesn't apply
to you. Eventually you get pulled over and try to convince the
officer that they are wrong to victimize you this way. Result:
ticket. Do it over and over again and it turns out the same.
RIAA's tactics are heavy-handed, but I bet they will withstand
the constitutional challenge being suggested. What should be
protested is the fact that they are not going after the persons
who initiated the sharing of the files in the first place. Being a
link in a long chain has less liability than whatever source point
that chain is anchored to. Those persons are more deserving of
the scrutiny, but it's unlikely that they could be easily found, so
RIAA will go after those it CAN easily identify. Like I said at the
beginning, it's way too late to protest.
The heavy handed approach by the RIAA is a direct result of a recording industry that has shown unwillingness to offer up distribution methods that suit technology and the consumer.
They have painted themselves into a corner and are now lashing out. I don't agree with stealing music or anything else. But the dinosaur that is the RIAA and its members are doomed in the long run, especially if they refuse to acknowledge consumer desires.
Wait, so you have to be rich to own a computer and have internet access now? And you have to be a genius with loads of free time on your hands to download and use a simple program ?
- Was that an error?
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by Travis Ernst
October 17, 2007 2:31 PM PDT
- Did you happen to notice that 5 of the John Doe's had the SAME IP
-
Reply to this comment
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- same IP address
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by declan00
October 17, 2007 2:43 PM PDT
- Yep, same IP address. It wasn't an error on my part; I just copied from the court documents.
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(22 Comments)address? That could possibly mean a hub or library, even Wi-Fi.
You have to do better than giving the same IP address claiming it is
5 different people. That alone in MY eyes is reasonable doubt.
I don't think it's an error on the RIAA's part, either. The most likely scenarios are that: (a) it's the same person and the RIAA listed too many John Does or (b) it's a different person because the IP address is reassigned every few hours.