In early March, the Recording Industry Association of America launched a new ""deterrence program"" to discourage illegal file sharing on college campuses. In response, UW-Madison officials deterred the program itself, refusing to hunt down and turn in the offending IP address users in campus networks. We support the university's decision, and hope the RIAA recognizes its folly in pressuring UW-Madison officials to infringe on students' privacy with pre-litigation letters.
Basically, the ""deterrence program"" works like this: The RIAA identifies IP addresses of file-sharing offenders. It then floods university mailboxes with pre-litigation settlement letters in hopes that campus officials will join the crackdown. Finally, the officials decide whether to inform offending students of the impending legal fees.
The program has two primary flaws: The first flaw, aptly identified by Division of Information Technology Communications Manager Brian Rust, is that turning students over to the RIAA infringes on privacy rights. Moreover, a student assigned to a particular IP address may not be the actual individual who illegally exchanged files.
This brings us to the second failure of logic: The deterrence program unfairly targets students in campus networks while ignoring the prevalence of illegal file sharing in private networks.
Students do, however, have a legal responsibility to ensure the legality of their file-sharing activities. Despite the university's decision to protect students from the RIAA, it will not and should not tolerate copyright infringement. Students unaware of UW-Madison's policy on file sharing and copyright law should educate themselves by reading UW-Madison's Appropriate Use Policy, available through the DoIT website, http://www.doit.wisc.edu.
The 66 letters sent to the UW System March 21 is part of a larger crackdown that began with lawsuits in 2003. Clearly, the RIAA is determined to recoup its losses and control pervasive music pirating.
Students should be wary of the possibility that the RIAA will pursue valid subpoenas, which would force university compliance. The university has chosen to protect students from litigation but will take action if given reason to believe copyright violation has occurred. We support the university's stance, as it strikes a fair balance between responsibility and right to privacy.
