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King Will Not Sue Schools Over Napster -- Yet 112

Posted by timothy from the imagine-suing-the-schools-which-train-lawyers dept.
Jon writes: "In this Daily Cal article Howard King claims, 'We made it pretty clear we're not going to sue colleges, at least not at this point in time. I think at this point my clients want me to continue the educational process.' This article mentions that so far only Penn State University has agreed to ban napster. The UC System (includes Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, etc), Michigan, Princeton can be added to the schools refusing to ban it."
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King Will Not Sue Schools Over Napster -- Yet More

King Will Not Sue Schools Over Napster -- Yet

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  • Duke University has also rejected the request to ban Napster. An article with a few juicy quotes can be found: here [duke.edu].
    "We did not want to ban Napster because there are a number of quite legitimate uses of the software in moving bodies of data around, and this is an area where such programs will become increasingly familiar," Keohane wrote in an e-mail. "We need to deal with the root of the problem in copyright protection and find good payments systems rather than ban something that facilitates legitimate communication."
    In addition, the admnistration sent students this letter via e-mail:
    Duke has declined a request from the attorney representing several music performers to ban access to napster.
    I do wish to remind all students that your license to use Duke's computing networks is predicated on legal use only, and that copyright infringement is not a permitted use.

    -The AC formerly known as Cheebus

  • #137 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
    That they behold, and see not what they see?
    They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
    Yet what the best is take the worst to be.
    If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks
    Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,
    Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
    Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
    Why should my heart think that a several plot
    Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?
    Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not,
    To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
    In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
    And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.

    -----------------------
    Anonymous William Shakespeare LIVES!

  • Re:Mad Props (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What are they going to do? Sue Microsoft for providing Windows. Sue Dell for making the PCs. Maybe that can sue Logitech (they made my mouse you know).

  • Re:They shouldn't ban napster (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember Steve Jackson Games and their equipment wasn't confiscated for pirated software.

    It was confiscated because on of the users on Steve's bbs (and I think maybe also an employee but I can't remember), "knew" somebody that frequented a hacker/warez bbs. Also that was when they were developing GURPS and a sci/fi cypherpunk game at the time.

    The Secret Service tried to use that as a basis that Steve's BBS and the game were instructions creating computer based crimes (though the technology discussed in the game wasn't even availible then and alot of it still isn't today).

    Steve was able to sue the not only the offending agency's but also some of the specific agents involved, which is if I remember right was a first.

  • Re:Just makes no logical sense (Score:3)

    by BOredAtWork ( 36 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @10:01AM (#759442)
    Sure, a chicken roaster manufacturer who knows their product is used to kill kids would have an obligation. But universities don't have the obligation to enforce copyright on Napster's service; Napster does. It's their service, they're the ones under an obligation to make sure it's not abused.

    Asking universities to stop providing the bandwidth that makes Napster effective is like asking chicken farmers to stop selling chickens because babys could be put in chicken roasters. If anybody should be policing copyrights, it's Napster itself. They're the ones in a questionable legal position, not the universities.

    --

  • Just makes no logical sense (Score:5)

    by BOredAtWork ( 36 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @05:42AM (#759443)
    It makes NO logical sense to sue to force a ban of Napster. And no legal precident exists for this, either. I mean, come on folks. As far as I can tell, this whole fiasco comes down to intended use. Napster is a file transfer system. It allows a user to search other users' drives for file with certain keywords in the name. That's it. The fact that it can be abused for piracy doesn't mean it should be illegal. By that logic, a chicken roaster should be illegal, because one could roast babies instead of chickens. BIC lighters should be illegal because they can be used to torch buildings instead of light cigarettes. And don't even get me started on firearms...

    As for asking universities to enforce the laws of the nation on their students, that's bullshit. That's what the legal system is for. If the RIAA wants pirates off Napster, let them go after the pirates. It makes very little sense for them to go after the university (who has lots of money and lawyers) rather than the big time pirates (who according to the RIAA are students, and most likely poor and without lawyers). Asking universities to circumvent the court system and start passing judgement on their students is insane. Notice that the RIAA isn't actually saying "Here's the IP of someone who's making 800 songs available, thereby violating our exclusive distribution rights, please remove them from your network", they're saying "Well, Napster's on your network, so somebody somewhere's bound to be pirating. Shut it ALL down." If universities argree to this, they've set themselves in a huge, huge hole. Next thing you know, someone could come along and say "you allow refrigerators on campus, somebody somewhere is bound to be keeping alcohol in them when they're underage, so ban them all". Somebody could come along and say "you make Xerox machines available for student use; somebody somewhere's bound to be photocopying part of my textbook and robbing me of royalty money, shut them all down!" The whole idea of the RIAA expecting ANY university to shut down a service based on the POSSIBILITY of abuse is outrageous, and insane. I'm glad to see schools standing up to this shit; and I'm glad to know that mine would be one of the last to ever ban anything tech related.

    --

  • At the risk of saying "me too", I am also a PSU student, and they did *not* ban Napster. I think you can blame the Daily Collegian (serving Penn State's toilet paper needs since 1855) for writing an article about the new policies that was misleading and totally misinterpretive of the policy, quoting student who knew obviously didn't even read the email.
  • I'm obviously still half-asleep. That last one should have read "...quoting students who obviously didn't even read the email."
  • Last I heard, my alma mater, IU, had banned Napster. Initially they banned it out of network bandwidth concerns; then they reconfigured things somewhat to segregate Napster-able networks from ones used for serious research, and re-enabled Napster; then they disabled it again after being threatened with a lawsuit. Maybe this announcement will cause them to turn the tables once more. ;)

    Vovida, OS VoIP
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • The University of Northern Iowa has banned Napster AND Scour SX for this entire year, Napster has been banned since last year december.

  • While it's great to know that lots of people at these big universitys that cost lots of money to go to are allowing napster to still be used.. unfortunately, most of the smaller schools don't have the money or legal team to take on any battles. My school has already banned napster, and also banned scour sx. I am personally opposed to this, but I have to face the fact that my school (the University of Northern Iowa) is easily bullied by evil lawyers who send cease and desist letters.

    Remember, UCLA and the UC Berkley campus don't make up the majority of college students.

  • It's THREATSTER! [lowpass.net] An all purpose Napster automatic legal threat generator.
  • If you truly believe this, when do you think you'll start promoting and participating in rallies, boycotts, and other means of coercion, demanding that every university release all of their research data into the public domain? It *is* information, and it *does* want to be free, doesn't it?

    Even if Napster is banned by universities, I'm convinced that Napster will never go away because there are too many people who find it too easy to rationalize, in every way imaginable, the theft of this kind of property. With respect to the aforementioned question, I doubt seriously that "consistency" is a word that will characterize the most common approaches to this issue - including those of the universities themselves. It's rather hypocritical to suggest that some intellectual property ought to be subject to public theft (music), while they retain tight control over their own.

  • At any rate it seems to me that most people are violating copyright law, so therefore the law should be nulled.

    Huh? I don't quite follow you... are you trying to say that any law that a lot of people break should be voided? There sure do seem to be a lot of drunk drivers on the roads this time of year, maybe we should just legalize drunk driving, then? That make sense to you? If it doesn't, that bit of your argument doesn't either...

    The rest of your argument holds though... ISPs have no control of what flows through their lines, they just sell bandwidth. ISP's and universities should fall under that clause. Napster, as a company, shouldn't, unless they became a real ISP, providing bandwidth to users rather than just content.

    And the only reason that a college should even consider banning Napster is if it's causing too much network usage for students to get their work done. Past that, RIAA, metallica, dre, et al, should either go after users or sit back and let the RIAA and Napster duke it out in court.
  • But if a chicken roaster manufacturer found that 95% of the roasters they sold were in fact being used to roast babies, they would probably feel the moral obligation to pull the roasters from the market, at least until such a time as when potential purchasers could be better educated about what the legitamate uses of chicken roasters actually were...

    Face it, people and corporations have moral obligations as well as obligations to their shareholders... That's why Ford took out all those TV spots, to reassure the public that they were doing the right thing, rather than trying to sweep the tire controversy under the carpet...

    To paraphrase another posters sig, which i think was paraphrased from jurasic park, which was probably paraphrased from somewhere else, it's time for people to realize that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should..
  • Oh okay... i thought this thread was started trying to defend napster from their users actions... universities should be akin to common carriers, like ISP's... but napster is a ASP, so they should be treated on different grounds...

  • Re:They shouldn't ban napster (Score:3)

    by Surak ( 18578 ) <surak&mailblocks,com> on Saturday September 23, 2000 @06:11AM (#759454) Homepage Journal
    If i dialed my friends computer direct, would the phone company be liable if i xfered a copyrighted song? No just as it would not be liable if i used it to make a threating phone call.

    But your friend would. And I think herein lies the rub. Back in my BBS days, that's exactly what you would do. BBSes would even be connected to networks, like FidoNet. Yet they still could be held legally liable for stuff that went across those networks. Remember the case of Steve Jackson Games: their BBS and all of its equipment were confsicated because of pirated software, and much of it was put online by it's users. (We didn't have cool technologies like MP3 in those days :)

    ISPs are really just logical extensions of BBSes, except that most ISPs (with the notable exception of "online services" like AOL or MSN) don't have their own local content. Although some ISPs have portals that are specific to their users, so the lines are blurring. ISPs provide Internet access, but people dialup or otherwise connect to them, and the content does pass through their systems.

    I'm not saying that ISPs shouldn't be given common carrier status: I'm just providing background and playing devil's advocate here.

  • As I mentioned yesterday [slashdot.org], there's an updated Daily Cal article here [dailycal.org].

    Kevin Fox
  • Yeah, sue Harvard. Reeeeeal good idea. A school that routinely turns out a large percentage of what are considered the best lawyers in the business. ("good" as in skilled, not as in "morals" :)

    Hell, probably half the RIAA's lawyers would have to remove themselves from the case due to conflict of interest with their alma mater.

  • Gimme a break dude.
    Sure, you can say 'Napster can be used for good'.
    We all know damn well that most users use it to pirate music. Sheesh. ANd in this case, that IS the point.
    THey aren't banning the tool; they're saying that a tool that is mostly used for criminal activity is showing up, so they're going to KEEP AN EYE on it.
    How much more reasonable should they be?

  • Lastly, if they count total packets going to napster.com, then you should set up a daemon to reload napster's news stuff periodically, keep good records to prove that your were not really getting mp3s, and sue the school when they accuse you of piracy.

    How can I say this subtly? I can't. You're a twit. That's called fraud and/or perjury.

  • Napster articles are starting to become a little deja-vu...

    Napster sucks! Piracy sucks!
    Napster rules! Go, freedom of speech!
    Can Napster get its own topic icon?
    Aren't we having too many Napster posts?

  • most numbers I've seen (not pulled out of someone's ass) put the infringing material at 87%, and if you accept that spears/m&m probably make up 20% of that alone, it draws a slightly different picture of its use.

    The RIAA and King need to get over it. As the Gunslinger might say, the world has moved on.
    --
  • wait until Napster actually has an income, before you dismiss their business model (making music sharing VERY easy). There are already large musician groups that get paid for large scale free distrubution (radio), so wait until Napster has record profits before you crucify them for not sharing.

    --
  • so you're excusing theft until payment can be afforded?


    You'll have to define "theft" for me better. I am more than willing to excuse copyright infringement, however. So if that's how you define theft, then you have my answer.

    If copyright were defined correctly, it wouldn't be infringement either, IMHO.

    not sure what VC money has to do with anything. Yes, they do plan on making a profit, and yes, they should compensate the folks whose material is being traded, BUT, we're not to that point yet.

    Robin Hood has nothing to do with my love of Napster. We are in a golden age of music. Never before has so much music been so available to so many people, at such a low cost to every one.

    It never has been or should be illegal to give my friend a cd, nor should it be if I wish to do so with a digital file.

    --
  • No, if they lose, then they are "illegal" until they WIN at appeals (if they indeed do win). The RIAA will be allowed to shut them down.

    Rader

  • No, Penn State isn't the only school banning napster... it's 'banned' from my school, Juniata College, as well - smaller, and about an hour or so from Penn State. All the IP's of the napster servers have been blocked - but not because of any legal reasons. Mainly because it caused bandwidth to be near unusable proportions, worse than dialup at times. So in effect, they're not blocking napster - there's always OpenNap - but bandwidth offending sites. It makes to QoS unsuitable for everyone else on the network. There's still scour, as far as I can tell, and the traditional method of searching HTTP and FTP... that gets rid of the lasy people.

    I think a worse thing would be banning/blocking something like Half-Life from the network - it's a revenue model for Valve, and actually could possibly damage the company, given enough blockings, unlike napster's situation.

    -------
    CAIMLAS

  • Actually, I have a friend that goes to UCSB. Last year, he complained too... Complained that noone bugged him about keeping a warez site up for the whole year. UCSB has absolutely no network Oversight, therefore the place gets red-lined. For instance, up here at UC Santa Cruz, they "limit" dorms to a gig a day (upload) and a very high (but obtainable) download limit. If you break the limit two times, they'll shut you down for a month, and after enough warnings, they'll shut you off for the rest of the year or longer.
    If I remember correctly, we have a much better connection than UCSB, but our network still gets busy. Perhaps you should talk to the network people there and see if they can start filtering the people (like my friend) who would do 3-5 gigs of traffic a day up, and as much as possible down (mostly mp3's and music videos).

    Hasta luego
    Exantrius
  • You never ever sue when you have a good chance of loosing by suing someone with a better leagal team. How many of the best paid lawyers and judges went to Princeton, UC, Standford etc?
    Besides anoying them will cause lots of lost sales when the students start protesting and closing down every record store near the shcools not to mention that many of the "new napsters" have people working on it from thouse schools.

    Now going after individual students at those schools will be fair game for them.
  • It's prohibiting speech that is still free -- the universities have no legal obligation to ban their users from connecting to Napster's servers. The lawsuit isn't over and Napster's service is still running. Damn lawyers. They can't beat Napster in court (fast enough) so they try to do an end-run around the process by cutting off Napster's users.
  • Don't most colleges act as their own ISP, and isn't it true that ISPs can't be sued for the content that goes through there servers?
  • All that Penn State is doing is complaining when they see lots of data going to one specific computer, even then, they will probably just give you a warning. I just installed Linux last night over the Penn State network (~700MB) and I haven't heard anything from any of the computer people, so I assume that you have a fairly high allottment of bandwith before they complain.

    And besides, I think Penn State has every right to stop people who are sucking up tons of bandwith. When I got to campus this fall, the network was incredibly slow, and everyone from the Office of Telecommunications seemed to think that it was people who running Napster. The problem is mainly that people who didn't know what they were doing with Napster and would think they were closing Napsterwhen in fact it was running in their taskbar 24/7.

    Now, the network is running much better, and personally, I couldn't be happier.

    JohnnyO

  • Oh yeah, I entirely agree that the network needed to be fixed, but I still think that there are a lot of people who installed Napster without knowing how to use it, thus letting it run in the taskbar all the time.

    BTW, if you wanna get fast connections from PSU, try going through CMU. Penn State's ISP is the SuperComputer center in Pittsburgh, which also serves CMU.

    I installed RedHat from a mirror at CMU and I got everything downloaded (~700MB) in under 20mins. God I love the ethernet.

    JohnnyO

  • Is it just me or is anyone else getting slightly annoyed at Napster not having its own topic icon? Considering the quantity of Napster-related discussion recently, I think people would appreciate being able to separate Napster stories from stories about new artist or new compression methods.

    Of course, a system involving multiple topics would be ideal, giving people more control over what they read. But I appreciate that implementing this would be a major time investment.

  • King and the other media/recording goons are not sueing schools for allowing students to run napster because they are scared. They know damn good and well that were they to go after a school, large or small, that they would not only be attacking a single school, but the entire system of which liberal education is based on. This of course would bring schools such as harvard and yale, emory and CSU into the whole thing, of which all controll more political and legal power than (in my oppinion based on personal experiance at least) any other faction in the world. The heads of the companies like TW, Sony, RIAA, MPAA, atc all come from these schools and they will, in the end, remain loyal to their respective schools.
    Were such a case to ever REALLY come up in courts, the combined power of the legal schools against the recording industry would just obliterate any claim made by such, and would most likely result in a complete 180 and make napster's case 100x stronger.

    ...got a cold, going back to bed
    -Doug

  • There is also evidence that computer viruses have been transmitted in the process that owners may not be aware of.

    Is it just me or does this sound like scaremongering?

    On the one hand the letter states " These scans do not examine the content of a particular computer in any way", and on the other hand they claim to have detected a virus..

    Moral of the day .. if you bad kid's run Napster you'll catch a virus .. and you wouldn't want that, right?


    Steve
    ---
  • Next time please read the webpage - This is for the ResNet feed only. The school is connected to CalREN2 by way of an OC-12, with a backup DS3 to UUnet (aka Alternet)

    ~d

  • I really wish they would ban napster on my campus (UCSB). Sure it's a UC, and sure they encourage freedom, but sorry, it's sopping up network bandwith like there's no tommorow. Do you not believe me? Check out the UCSB ResNet bandwidth stats [ucsb.edu] . It's painful to look at. That's right, the network is redlined for most of the day, except between (usually) 2am and 9am. I mean, I can't even webbrowse at 11am because that's when all the kids wake up to go "napster" their favorite songs before lunch, literally bringing the network to a crawl.

    From what I understand, most UC schools get their resnet internet access either at discount with help from the state, or for free. I serious do not think this is a valid use of my (and "our" for those of you living in California) tax dollars. Why should I be paying for someone else to napster the network to death? Sheesh.

    I would really be interested in your counter opinions or support... That's right... Press that reply button. :)

  • I made the comment that Napster sent the letter to penn state. I messed up. It was the lawyers for Metallica and Dre and some others...

  • Penn State NOT banning napster, I think (Score:5)

    by ChunkOChowder ( 71324 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @05:20AM (#759477)
    I am a Penn State Student A few days ago, after PSU received a letter from Napster's lawyers, this email was sent out to all of PSU's students. No where does it say anything about Napster being banned outright. Here's the letter:

    Dear Penn State Student,

    As you may have heard, computer programs like Napster and computer networks have made copying copyrighted material including music and videos easier than ever. The press has reported this phenomenon widely and there has been considerable discussion of it in the Penn State community. You should know that copying of copyrighted material without the permission of the owner is a violation of state and federal laws as well as University policy. The University regards these violations as a very serious matter.

    The University has done initial scans of its networks to determine the use level of programs like Napster. These scans do not examine the content of a particular computer in any way but do determine traffic characteristics. The scans suggest that some students may be making extensive use of Napster and other programs that can facilitate illegal copying of copyrighted material that belongs to another person, group, or company. There is also evidence that computer viruses have been transmitted in the process that owners may not be aware of.

    Although it is not the intent to curtail legitimate use of such software, the University has an obligation to ensure that its networks and computers are not used to violate the law or University policy. While some seem to take violation casually, the penalties for copyright infringement are serious. All users should be aware of Penn State's program of continuous review of network traffic to identify copyright violations, viruses, or other unsanctioned activities.

    If you are responsible for a computer that is attached to the Penn State network in any way, your use of that network is subject to such review. If the review uncovers symptoms of problems discussed above, you will be contacted for further review of your network use. Assistance will be available to eliminate any problems that exist. This will improve network performance for all network users. If the University receives notice that you have used the University network to infringe copyrighted works, your account will be suspended.

    Appropriate use of the Penn State computer network and respect for the copyrighted works of others will help to ensure continued access to the widest possible array of software for all University users.

    Sincerely,

    Rodney A. Erickson
    Executive Vice President and Provost

    PS: For further information or questions, contact the Center for Academic Computing (helpdesk@psu.edu), Computer and Network Security (security@psu.edu), or your local campus computing organization. Students in the Residence Halls can contact ResCom (rescom@psu.edu).
  • Just as they shouldn't ban anything. Colleges are supposed to be haven's for free speech, and once you start banning one thing its easy to ban something else. 'We're already banning this, so why not that?' At any rate ANY ISP should be giving the status of common carrier and exempt from how people use thier network. If i dialed my friends computer direct, would the phone company be liable if i xfered a copyrighted song? No, just as it would not be liable if i used it to make a threating phone call. If the RIAA wants someone to sue, its the individuals, not any of the inbetweens. At any rate it seems to me that most people are violating copyright law, so therefore the law should be nulled.
  • Thats the reason it was banned at my school too. The kicker was it wasn't students downloading that was a problem, it was people from the outside downloading that killed it. Those slow modem users held connectios for so long that things getting out had a lot of problems, while things going into the campus were just fine.
  • Even the BBSs shouldn't have been shut down for that. Would anyone sue the USPS b/c a bomb was delivered via it? Of course not, anyone thinking that would be thought insane. Would the post office be shut down b/c a package with a bomb in it was stored there until it was routed to the correct address? Or how about if the phone company stored a threatening voice mail for one of thier customers? I understand how you wanted to provide some background; the background is meaningless here. Usually something wrong now was also wrong in the past (morally; laws should reflect the morals of the society they are created in).
  • Ya, if it becomes that a majority (60, 70%) of people drive drunk, and not just at a specific time but usually, then yes the law is outdated and needs to be redone. The only reason for the gov't to keep a law around that most everyone violates is so that you can arrest most everyone at a whim. There is no reason to keep a law that no one follows. Its illogical, and it goes against the values of the society.
  • Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,
    Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
    O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
    And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
    Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
    That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
    And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
    Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
    Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those
    Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
    Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows
    Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
    By self-example mayst thou be denied!
  • I am a Penn State student and I think there is another question that needs to be answered.

    Why are these lawyers going after Universities in the first place? I mean it seems like such a waste of time, a real drop in the bucket. If you really think about it, there are 12,000 students on the PSU campus, a recent statistic said that around 65% of college students say they have used Napster. So around 7,000 students have and use a solid connection to trade files. If PSU banned it, I really don't think there would be much of an effect. So many people have cable modems and dsl lines, it's not that a fast connection is that unique anymore.

    I am sorry, I think that is a real waste of time for the lawyers considering that there 27 million users the last time I checked. I really just think it is obnoxious.

    Fisics
  • Yeah. That was a big problem at UCSD last year, and apparently it is a problem again this year. Students do not realize that when they close the Napster window, that the little icon is still in their systray and Napster is still running, sharing files with others.

    Obviously this is a problem, and shutting Napster down for bandwidth reasons is acceptable, especially since a campus network is to be used primarily for educational purposes. However, I don't want to see Napster shut down on the RIAA's terms. Bandwidth is the only legit reason to shut it down.

  • They want a legal victory against napster in the court system first. Once they have an opinion that it's actually illegal, they'll have a much more solid case against the schools.
  • The school should be considered a common carrier and not required to ban access to anything BUT if the school is partially funded by tax dollars, the RIAA could have an attack there. Of course, if they manage to get napster shut down, the question is moot.
  • Cripes, I don't know! I forgot my standard IANAL (But I Play One On TV) tag. Sorry about that. I think they'd have more of a chance to contrive something if the university is publically funded. Hopefully if they take it to court, the judge and jury would break into fits of giggles as soon as they make their opening presentation.
  • If the RIAA scores a win, Napster will appeal and will probably try to get an injunction allowing them to stay in business until a final decision is made, which could take years. In the mean time all those college students will continue to trade music over it.

    Oh yeah, IANAL, But I Play One On TV.

  • No no no...

    It's "Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?"

    I just confirmed this by listening to the MP3...

    from Napster...

    EHEHEHEH

  • A reasonable man would not allow others to use his property for committing felonies once he's been apprised of that use. It's that simple.

    The universities know it's going on. Prudent (if ultimately in vain) steps exist for them to take. It's their legal responsibility to take those steps. It's that simple.

    So, let's say the "reasonable man" owns a piece of property, surrounded by a fence with 65535 unlocked gates. Let's say it's some sort of park, and he lets thousands of people come and go as they please, through a variety of gates. He knows that some people come onto his property through some particular gate, and exchange illegal copies of audio CDs. Does the reasonable man put a padlock on that one particular gate? Of course not, it would be futile. Does the law require the reasonable man to hire guards at his expense to individually check everyone coming onto his property for copyrighted material? I sure hope not.

  • On the other hand, it's a nice legal argument from the universities. "We are not responsible for the actions of our students while on line." It's almost the same argument that Napster uses. "We are not responsible for the actions of Napster users."

    Unfortunately, Napster doesn't appear to be winning with this argument.

    Yeah, but if they sued some large ISP for transporting Napster packets, that's the argument the ISP would use, and the ISP would certainly win. The university's role, in allowing unfiltered Internet access, is obviously much more comparable to an ISP than to Napster.

  • Suing a college to have them ban napster is kind of like trying to close down interstate 80 because drugs are transported through it. Thats quite stupid and also a waste of money.
  • ... They're concentrating all of their legal into suing the real menace here: the hospitals! With a crime as horrible as music piracy it is obvious that no normal person could perpatrate it. It must be some kind of genetic mutation. (probably caused by some of the 70's rock our parents were listening to when we were convieved) Hospitals should have spotted this way back and disposed of such enemies of the people...
  • What I mean by that is, where does the banning stop? Could colleges and universities be pressured into banning CD-R(W)'s because they *could* be used to copy copyrighted materials? Could they also be pressured into shutting down ftp and nntp, because they also are sometimes used to transmit copyrighted materials? Can the colleges/universities even be pressured into banning anything computer related? I'm curious, because I might be moving into a dorm soon and I'd hate to see the school laying the smack down on my computers.

    As far as the bandwidth issue goes, I think they might take a bit of offence to my plans to have dorm-wide deathmatches, but those don't use up *that* much bandwidth, now do they? ;)

  • I don't think Napster has the staying power to warrant its own icon. What will be the state of Napster in 1 or 2 years? It will be supplanted by some other file sharing application. I think something more general purpose like "Some Big Gorilla Association of America Stomping on our Rights" icon would make more sense. Mantle
  • Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between various reasons for blocking Napster. I'm a student at the University of Connecticut, where Napster has been banned, quietly, since last winter. The primary reason cited at the time was that students utilizing Napster were taking up far too much bandwidth. Since then, we haven't heard from the University about it, and many students use the Napigator/Napster combo, Gnutella, or Scour Exchange. I really don't see that anyone has been deterred from using file sharing software due to legal concerns. Our campus resnet has added some weekly and monthly bandwidth restrictions, in addition to the old daily limit. They've set up a way to monitor the use on your IP, so it is quite easy to avoid running afoul of the limits.

    KAR

  • Yesterday while reading the GeorgiaTech technique [gatech.edu] yesterday I noted that the school officials raised a number of valid points such as

    Apart from the fact that Tech feels it is not under any legal obligation to enact a ban, attempting to ban Napster without limiting Internet access in other ways is nearly impossible from a technological standpoint. "At a university like Georgia Tech, such a solution is impractical. Further, even if we found a temporary method, our students are bright enough to find ways around it," said Harty.

    Too true, blocking Napster's default port simply means that other ports will be used.

    "We will, of course, take swift action regarding any specific instances of infringement of your clients' copyrighted materials once they are brought to our attention."

    Under the provisions detailed in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Tech is considered an Internet Service Provider.

    So there will still be disciplinary action against those who have been shown to violate copyright materials. So what is the point of asking for a ban except as a hamfisted attempt to bully schools that have a combined legal might that dwarfs Metallica's?

  • I go to Cornell University, and yesterday, the student body got an e-mail explaining intelectual property, but in effect saying that they won't bloak any internet service.
  • Actually, it's worse -- the SS thought that GURPS:Cyberpunk (the role-playing supplement in question) WAS a handbook for crackers.

    They still haven't got some of the computers back, either.
  • I am at Smith College and apparently the bandwith was just sucked up by Napster last year so they blocked it over the summer - as for legal reasons? I doubt that the administration will touch it.

    "Smith is listed among an estimated 30 percent of campuses, including Amherst and Hampshire, that are blocking access to Napster, the Internet library that many students use to download recorded music. "We weren't thrilled about blocking, but there was great concern that academic scholarship was being interrupted because of the [network] congestion," said Herb Nickles, executive director of Smith's information technology services." - Boston Globe
  • Here at the University of Connecticut, they've banned Napster, not because they were asked too, but becuause it was sucking up too much bandwidth for recreational perposes.

    Maybe as a music major I can convince them I need access. Not that the ban is holding me back. Napigator satisfies all my try-before-I-buy needs.

    -Erik
  • The Universities are selling us connections to their network. They can restrict us in any way they want, just like your ISP can choose to provide shell accounts or not. If we don't like it, we can take our business elsewhere, but universities have every right to say what we can and cannot do on their networks.

    -Erik
  • Penn State of course now is open to all law suites of this nature since they agreed to monitor and block Napster.
    I'd love to see King, etc sue a student who does own all of the CDs - which is the real test here.
  • oh, i wish the dumb bastard would try to sue harvard...the law school would eat him alive.
  • Being that it can only search and index mp3 files napster has a very limited narrow use. It just so happens that about 99% of napster traffic is used for illegaly distributing copyrighted material. "can" be used for piracy? It IS being used for piracy even as we speak. The RIAA can't go after the 99% of illegal napster users, so they have to go after the whole thing.
  • And don't even get me started on firearms...

    Let me start from that... firearms are indeed illegal (if you live outside the USA) and that's because, while you can both use a gun to kill a charging bull or a human, common sense says that most people buy guns to kill humans not bulls.
    You need to look at the facts. Who in the world does really use Napster to exchange non-copyrighted material ?
    You may say that it doesn't hurt big label's sale and prove anything you want.. but you must admit that it's a common understanding that Napster is used to exchange mostly copyrighted material. When you (not strictly you) do a search on Napster you usually know what you search, right ? ..And you know popoular performers better than unknown performers.
    The reason why there are actual humans dictating and enforcing laws is because laws need some help from "common sense".
    I'm pro-Napster, I still buy the few rare CDs that I like as a support action. I really hope Napster helps to force a change in the music industry.. but I must admit that Napster actual use mostly involves exchange of copyrighted material.
    Now if you tell me that Mr.King (from the heights of his throne) lacks of credibility when he tries to seduce insitutions to enforce laws by his not so well recognized "common sense", then I agree on that.
  • It seems rather apparent that Metallica's attorney knows they don't have a leg to stand on against the colleges. If the copyright violations of which King complains are so damaging to Dr. Dre & Metallica, why would they wait?

    If Napster is so harmful to Metallica's livelihood, why is Metallica choosing to wait to sue our nation's colleges?

    Maybe their case is not so cut and dry after all?

    --

  • Having read the actual e-mail in a previous post, I have to wonder what kind of TWIT wrote that article. My high school paper held to higher standards of journalism

  • Last school year, Bucknell University [bucknell.edu] did block students from using Napster after realizing that the file-sharing program represented at least 40% of all network traffic and resulted in a total saturation of our T-3 at the peak of Napster's popularity here on campus. Since the staff and administrators at Bucknell care a great deal about their students' welfare, they worked hard to provide a legal alternative that didn't saturate our network.

    Their final solution was entirely free (i.e. Bucknell paid $0.00); it involved setting up an iBeam [ibeam.com] server and coordinating with content provider Launch.com [launch.com] so that anyone Bucknellians can listen to a seemingly infinite amount of legal music beamed off of a dish on top of the campus' Computer Center.
    ______________________________
    Eric Krout
  • The same is happening with Napster. What the music industry really wants to to is stop all file sharing methods. They know that would be hopeless. The recent University decision to stand up to them has the music execs scared of their position being ruled officially invalid by a court which would then allow Napster (and the many napster like clones that would follow) asured eternal existance. By backing off from the Universities, they're free to continue to harass the little guy sharing MP3s, because unlike universities, the little guy can't afford to "win" a long drawn out lawsuit. He has neither the time nor the infinite money like the RIAA does, so he rolls over, and the RIAA gains more case law in their favor. Truly such behaviour is more than deserving of condemnation to the lowest depths of hell.

    I most certainly agree that the RIAA deserves to live in the depths of hell. But I think that rather than just shut it down, the RIAA wants to own the technology.

    They know they can't stop it, so they want to get a premium for it before they live in the dumps because the artists realize who is screwing over who (hint hint: It's not the napster fans)



    Kris
    botboy60@hotmail.com
    Nerdnetwork.net [nerdnetwork.net]
  • Make it idiot-proof and someone will build a better idiot.

    And I am that idiot



    Kris
    botboy60@hotmail.com
    Nerdnetwork.net [nerdnetwork.net]
  • Hmm, here's a though.

    Steven King writes scary stories. A scary concept is that special intrest groups such as the RIAA, and their associated lawyers (such as howard king) start "educating" people with far more technology smarts (like MIT) by trying to brainwash them with propaganda that suggests that every single napster user is a thief. I don't consider myself a thief. All of the music on my system I have or will be getting shortly (as in when the new limp bizkit CD comes out). I would hope that many of my fellow napster users do the same. We don't think the artist should be ripped off, regardless of what college we go to.

    I wish that Mr. King realize the same.



    Kris
    botboy60@hotmail.com
    Nerdnetwork.net [nerdnetwork.net]
  • ha ha, look at http://www.lowpass.net/index.php3/pr oducts/008 [lowpass.net]. It's hilarious.

    From a business standpoint, WE WANT YOUR MONEY YOU LITTLE CHEAPSKATE MOTHERFUCKERS!! GIVE IT! GIVE IT UP! HUH! GOOD GOD!



    Kris
    botboy60@hotmail.com
    Nerdnetwork.net [nerdnetwork.net]
  • So a Doctor of Technology should be allowed to use Napster but not a normal user, because they aren't academic enough...?

  • I believe the poster was referring to the fact that the scans only checked for transfers and those who had a lot of transfers were deemed automatically to have been breaking the law.

    Time-Warner is doing the same thing.

  • napster uses a random port IIRC. your other suggestions are quite valid.

  • at least the record companies have some intent of paying (albeit a piddling) amount to the artists

    ...

    which society is worse off -- the one that has companies that steals from artists to make a profit, or the one that renumerates them???

    Interesting quotations. Now I will first say that the society which supports its artists rather than stealing from them is the more healthy, then proceed to explain why I believe Napster is part of the transition towards such a society.

    Under the current system, the record labesl do not exist for the artists or for the listeners but for themselves. Any money paid to the artists must first be returned to the label to cover costs. They make investments in artists, but they are guaranteed a return because the investment rather than being a true risk is a debt the artist must repay one way or the other.

    Under the current system artists sign contracts obligating them to the will and financial well-being of the label. In return they are promoted by the label. Signing this contract has been a necessary evil because the system of distributing music in order to promote an artists' tour schedule (which is where artists will make money if they are ever to do so) has been expensive up until now, requiring the production and distribution of cd's and big payoffs to radio stations. It was an old boy network, as well, because one needed connnections to get these deals done.

    That is the world which is coming to an end as a result of efforts like napster, and one which the RIAA is trying to protect. If artists can distribute their music through MP3's they do not need labels for distribution. They do not have to censor their music because TimeWarnerAolDisney or Walmart does not like it. They do not have to adhere to a label's production schedule and they do not have to allow themselves to be subordinated to a system in which trite bubblegum crap is hailed far above any real art or message.

    On the internet we have our own radio stations and our own kind of digital music network. This is what the RIAA is afraid of and why the RIAA has attacked anyone who strives to promote such an effort. Already big-name artists are defecting, are embracing mp3 and defying the record labels. The little guys were already there because they had no label to defy, nothing to lose and everything to gain.

    True it will be hard for artists to convince TicketMaster and the rest of the concert booking establishment to go with the new model, but proof of concept will be millions of fans downloading your mp3, going to your website, attending the concerts you have been able to book.

    Eventually I would imagine a sort of artists' guild could be formed, not like a union, but a bona fide guild that negotiates not with the management, but directly with the customers... owners and executives of radio stations and studios, owners of concert venues, and ticket selling monopolies. Maybe even MTV. But really, the whole radio/video concept stands ready for obsolescence. The Internet will eventually be the real venue for viewing videos and eventually movies, for listening to music, and this is precisely what the RIAA is fighting. They are protecting their legalized slavery and monopoly. They do not care about the artists.

    Notice that when the artists asked for part of the settlement with mp3.com they were denied out of hand. Of course this was no surprise to anyone who knows what is truly happening here.

  • The University of Minnesota is threatening students with revocation of internet access if 'caught' using napster.

    Whether they actively seek napster users, or just wait until their habit is out of control (i.e. saturating the internet connectivity to a crawl), then revoke access, I haven't quite figured out. I haven't had my access banned, so I don't think they are doing either... yet!

  • hehe, funny you mention that, but last nite, i also installed linux (slackware) over the psu network.....maybe thats why it was so slow? ;)

    altho i do have to say, the network running much better has nothing to do whatsoever with napster. PSU's ISP was falling apart at the seams, and have been in the middle of a MUCH needed upgrade. as they get more of their systems up, the network keeps getting better and better.
  • Huh? I don't quite follow you... are you trying to say that any law that a lot of people break should be voided? There sure do seem to be a lot of drunk drivers on the roads this time of year, maybe we should just legalize drunk driving, then? That make sense to you? If it doesn't, that bit of your argument doesn't either...

    Here are a couple of examples of repealing or altering laws because a great number of people constantly broke them.

    The 18th ammendment of the US constitution, the one that created prohibition, is a good example of an act of legislation getting repealed because few people followed it. It was eventually repealed by the 21st amemendment of the US constitution because it didn't really stop people from drinking, it just made them outlaws.

    Automobile speed limits are an example of altering a law because so many people violate it. If you speed alone, you get a speeding ticket. But on the whole, if we all speed, they raise the speed limit.

    In general, laws that make most people criminals are both unpopular and expensive to enforce. Copyright laws as they stand today in the United States could make everybody online a criminal assuming enough bad judical precedents are set. So perhaps copyright laws should be relaxed in an effort to increase public support of copyright laws and to reduce court costs.

  • I'm anxious to know when King's going to go after Qwest and AT&T and so on, claiming that pirating goes on on their backbones. I can't wait to see Internet vs. RIAA.
  • Interesting, because if a student needs to prove that he/she owns the CDs, they can simply borrow them from their friends and roommates. That's the the (only) advantage to the dormatory system. ;-)

  • Wow, I'm suprised (Score:3)

    by AintTooProudToBeg ( 187954 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @07:22AM (#759523)
    I can't believe UCLA is siding with the man on the street. When I lived there, I wasn't allowed to run linux in the dorms (no servers... except winblows file sharing, of course). Not sure what their policy is now (I think you have to be questioned and fill out some forms now)

    You can read about one student's battle with UCLA resnet here [nerdherd.org]
  • I've heard from a couple of friends who are part of the Internet offices at Georgia tech that they will also refuse to ban napster.
  • I think all of these universities should be congratulated for for one not bowing to the capitalist nature of modern society and at least pretending to take a stand for freedom of access to information. Surely, they don't mind either the press or the ability to mention to incoming freshman that no, we don't block Napster, have a blast. I'll be interested to see whether universities that aren't as well endowed as Harvard or the UC's will also refuse Napster and risk what corporate weight RIAA has.
  • Do you think Harvard, MIT, and UC have such noble intentions?

    Yep. As an administrator at a UC I can assure you that we do not consider students to be customers, per se. The majority of funding at UC and certain other public universities does not come from students. We do have a business to protect, but the threats to this business are very far removed from Napster and it's consequences. I came to the university from industry and though there are some self-serving administrators I'd have to say the vast majority reasonably balance student, faculty, and community interests.

    Most funding for UCs comes from industry, public grants (NSF, NEA, etc.), and taxpayers (and taxpayers are only about 1/4 of the total funding...). Students are a part of this funding, but UCs don't grow as a result of student dollars.

    Universities both public and private concern themselves very much with freedom of speech issues. It's what allow faculty to challenge students and expand their fields. It's what allows universities themselves to operate through the sometimes bizarre beliefs and ideas of legislators, industry and politicians.

    Universities unfortunately haven't always taken advantage of this freedom, but they usually do protect it dearly.

    I don't speak on behalf of UC on this matter. These are my opinions only.
  • If chicken roasters were call baby roasters and marketed strictly for that purpose, regardless of the fact that they could also be used to roast chickens, they would be outlawed.

    That said, I'm of two minds on this issue. I applaud the colleges who are willing to stand up to the RIAA, and refuse to buckle under presure in the name of free speach and privacy. On the other hand, students have no business tying up the school networks downloading MP3's, copyrighted or not. The purpose of the networks are to assist students in their studies, not for entertainment.
  • Folks, let's not forget something. Unless I'm very badly mistaken (and I'm willing to admit that I may be), this is still a pending case. Until this case is settled, Napster, and everyone using it, is engaged in a legal, though disputed, activity. Napster is still claiming "fair use" and, regardless what the RIAA says now, it has not been determined finally by a court that Napster or any of its users is committing copyright infringements.

    I find it interesting that the RIAA is using the copyright infringement phrase as if the case is over and they've won.

    -Jimmie
  • this is true I am also a Penn State student and who ever reported this was very mistaken. Penn State has decided to keep napster alive on it's network. but it will be monitoring the network for overuse of the program. as reported in a local newspaper 30 students and 1 instructur have been identified and have been sent letter to stop. But this is out of 40,000 students alone just on this one campus and their are 80,000 students in all of the campuses. I think that this artical should be taken down since it is mostly fabricated on the authors part.
  • It's not that the law is wrong, it's just that you can't arrest 70% of the population. If they could get enough money, and find out how to do it without destroying the economy, they probably would.
  • Yes, I'm a Penn State student also. At the end of last year President Spainer didn't want to ban napster and I even remember the decision to buy more bandwith instead of blocking the use of the program. I'm in the IST and Comp Engineering programs, and Napster is a daily topic in a lot of our lectures now. One professor explained this letter. Penn State is only monitoring over use. So people in the dormitorys MIGHT have to watch out if they're downloading gigs and gigs, but the unlucky people on the Penn State dial-ups around Pennsylvania probably aren't going to be in any risk.

    I'm happy with a lot of Penn State's decisions. The "Technical" college of Penn State, Penn College (PCT) changed their nameserver to "block" Napster. But the Penn State system is completely seperated from Penn College... (on a personal note, I think Penn College is the biggest piece of shit I've seen in a long time) but on all the other Penn State campuses nothing changed. As far as bandwith problems, I could just see some universities using balancing hardware... dedicating a smaller portion to napster or something similar... but that's no longer the problem anymore :-)

    Oh welps...

  • Sorry, but that just isn't the way it happened. Useful information is at SJ Games' Web Site [sjgames.com]
  • Hey need napster from behind a firewall. Check it out! WEB-NAP [24.67.94.126]

  • stealing music... (Score:3)

    by fishfucker ( 217763 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @08:05AM (#759536)
    hardly a reason to go to university.

    i don't understand how you can have this "ANTI CAPITALIST I'M A RADICAL" viewpoint without understanding the simple fact that NAPSTER IS, YES, A CORPORATION. they are trying to MAKE MONEY FROM PEOPLE TRADING MP3s, which is precisely what the RECORD COMPANIES want to do to, except at least the record companies have some intent of paying (albeit a piddling) amount to the artists, because they live in the real world, where we have laws about intellectual property (ie, you make it, you own it -- until, of course, you sign your soul over to Warner.)

    which society is worse off -- the one that has companies that steals from artists to make a profit, or the one that renumerates them??? ..

    i'm guessing the later -- anyone who produces their own "intellectual property" should feel the same.

    fishfcuerk.
  • The college I attend (look at my e-mail address to find out who), does not officially ban the use of Napster or similar systems, (although the AUP does forbid using the network to violate local, state, or federal law). Instead, they choose to block Napster bound traffic at the socks sever. Officially, their justification is that widespread use of Napster displaces bandwidth which could otherwise be used for eduactional uses. However, some in our Computer Services department have hinted that the real reason is fear of a lawsuit, either from the industry or individual artists.

    By not officially banning Napster, the administration can hold on to the claim that they do not censor or restrict network access, freedom of speech, etc. Yet at the same time, they can also make the claim, if pressured by the RIAA, that they are being a responsible service provider by not allowing access to the supposedly evil Napster.

  • ...the IT department. After all, what they see are soooo many students connecting to that same damn IP for hours on end. The IT department at my college would certainly raise a big stink, since the ISP really stinks (it's supposed to be a T1, and it gets a 230ms ping; can you say, "get another ISP"?)

  • Re:Mad Props (Score:3)

    by sandman935 ( 228586 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @05:33AM (#759542) Homepage

    I think all of these universities should be congratulated for for one not bowing to the capitalist nature of modern society and at least pretending to take a stand for freedom of access to information.

    Yadda yadda yadda... Do you think Harvard, MIT, and UC have such noble intentions? I wonder.

    ``This is not a statement of support for Napster, nor are we condoning copyright infringement,'' said Bob Harty, a spokesman for Georgia Tech. ``To unilaterally block access to a site is an overly blunt response to this issue and we believe that it constitutes an unwise policy.''

    Translation: "We have a business to protect and unilaterally punishing our customers er... students is bad business.

    On the other hand, it's a nice legal argument from the universities. "We are not responsible for the actions of our students while on line." It's almost the same argument that Napster uses. "We are not responsible for the actions of Napster users."

    Unfortunately, Napster doesn't appear to be winning with this argument.

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