News
Briefly
Calendar of Events
Commentary
Opinions
Sports
Diversions
World News
Classifieds
Login
Letter Submission
Search
Archive
Publishing Policy
Mail Subscriptions
St. Cloud State University
College Publisher
Home
>
News
RIAA hunts student pirates
By Regina Eckes
Published:
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Media Credit: Adam Masloski
Shawn Fanning, a regular 18 year-old student at Northeastern University only wanted to make sharing music with his friends easier.
The product? Napster, a Peer 2 Peer networking system that allowed him and his friends to do just that, share music files.
The consequence? A music revolution that the world loves and recording industries hate.
Since the creation of Napster in 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has attempted to shut down the swapping of music and video files with little to no luck. Although it were able to disable Napster somewhat quickly on the basis that sharing music files and burning CDs infringe on copyright laws, the system itself mutated into many other species that all perform the same task. Morpheus, Grokster, Kazaa, iMesh, Gnutella and WinMX are among the more popular servers. Kazaa recently became the most successful with an estimated 211 million registered users.
But patience wears thin in a society based on commercialism and profits. For the first time in its four-year battle, the RIAA is now going after ordinary, individual file swappers, issuing subpoenas and suing people for up to 100,000 dollars.
One individual in particular was 12-year-old Brianna Torres who was sued for illegally copying over 1,000 songs. Her mother, Sylvia Torres, was forced to settle the suit for $2,000, an amount that local community members are raising to reimburse the family. Later the RIAA claimed it did not know the girl was only 12 years old; it simply tracked the computer's location and mailed the lawsuit to the corresponding address.
Last week over 261 lawsuits were filed against users, including students at Michigan Tech and Princeton. College campuses are often targeted due to their population of young adults who grew up in the computer age and love music.
The majority of students at SCSU are guilty as charged for downloading songs and video files. Even though the RIAA has claimed such actions to be illegal for four years, students have their own reasons for continuing to share music files.
"I'm for sharing music online because it's like giving a CD to your buddy," Nate Engstrom, a junior transfer student, said. "Just because the Internet is involved everyone is getting in trouble."
Engstrom also compared file sharing to recording songs off the radio when he was younger.
"You're still getting music for free and no one ever got in trouble for recording tapes," he said.
Some students, like Eric Borchardt, never bought much music even before the file swapping revolution due to the cost. Students often find it outrageous that one CD can cost up to $20.
Paul Flanagan, second-year student, believes music is overpriced and has no sympathy for the record companies.
"The way I look at it is the record companies did it to themselves by charging $15 too much for a CD," he said. "It costs (the record company) 12 cents to make a CD and the artist, depending on who it is, doesn't see a dime. They make all their money off of tours."
Others like first-year students Nethanya Fehrmann and Rosalynn Helm can understand why the recording industry would be upset if its profits were going down. But part of them still likes the free music and wishes it to continue, however.
"I'm torn because I like free music but I know it's like taking (the artist's) material," Fehrmann said. "But I also think it promotes them, because if you hear a song you like you can go out and buy the CD."
Leading the fight against the RIAA's action is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The organization wants students to be aware of how the RIAA is tracking people, and is giving out tips to reduce the risk of being caught. The RIAA chooses to sue based on the IP address received from the user's ISP (internet service provider). Special software is designed to sift through users� publicly shared folders and directories which will then identify the IP address.
One tip to avoid a lawsuit is deleting any unnecessary songs or videos that computer users do not need, because the lawsuits filed last week all dealt with people who had downloaded over 1,000 files. The EFF also states that a user can disable the sharing or uploading feature on their P2P system, making it more difficult for other users and the RIAA to have access to the files he or she obtained.
While deterring users from sharing files for free, the RIAA is encouraging people to subscribe to a service that would require money for its use. However, these types of servers have problems and limitations.
Apple iTunes prides itself on having the most extensive collection of music, over 200,000 singles, for only 99 cents a song or around $10 for a full album. But Apple iTunes is only available for those with Macintosh computers. Likewise, MusicNet is only accessible for AOL members. Rhapsody appears to be the best deal in this market because it only requires Windows XP software and Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher. It offers 20,000 albums from over 9,000 artists. For $9.95 a month, users can stream and download songs, but burning a CD costs a little extra, at 79 cents per track.
It is possible, but not probable, that students could quit downloading music entirely to keep from being sued or having to pay a membership fee to a downloading service. But students do not seem to be frightened by the RIAA's antics.
"Everyone who has a computer is probably downloading music," second-year student Bob Norton said. "They can't arrest everybody for doing the same thing."
Flanagan believes the RIAA will eventually have to back down to allow the file swapping happen.
"It's illegal to copy a football game; you could get a $250,000 fine, but you don't see that happening anymore," Flanagan said. "They just figured that they can't stop it anymore and they moved on. I think the same thing will happen with this."
Fehrmann and Helm may be in the minority for being slightly worried at the prospect of getting tracked and choose not to use a downloading service at school for various reasons.
"In the dorms I haven't tried it and I don't want to try it unless I know that I'm not going to get in trouble," Helm said. "Plus I have enough music already downloaded as it is."
Fehrmann had a similar view; she became nervous when warnings about performing illegal activity kept popping up on her computer.
Students, at large, seem to appear uninterested in paying a fee to download music, even if it is safer and legal. Fehrmann said she might consider it if songs were only a quarter and Borchardt would think about paying a few dollars if the internet connection was guaranteed to be smooth and fast all the time. Norton, however, said he would just find another service that was free.
Currently no one, not even the RIAA, knows if the newfound thirst to weed out the illegal file swappers will be effective. Some have decided to burn the last of their tracks onto CDs and close the door on the downloading era. Others, namely students, are not disturbed at the prospect of receiving a lawsuit in their mailbox.
Whether it continue to go after all types of people or just users with a colossal amount of files, the RIAA has the intense task of catching millions of people who are not intimidated by its bold actions.
Forum:
No comments have been posted for this story.
Post a comment
