File-sharing at school

Parents might want to tell music fans heading off to school this fall that universities don't necessarily protect them from anti-piracy lawsuits. "A federal judge has ordered Michigan State University to produce the identities of nine people accused of using the campus computer system to illegally make music available to others via the Internet," the Detroit Free Press reports, and MSU has made no objection to the request. The RIAA (recording industry trade association) has particularly targeted file-sharing at universities in recent legal action. The latest round of RIAA lawsuits targeted 477 file-sharers at 14 universities across the US (see this issue of my newsletter for details.) The way it works is, the RIAA identifies the IP addresses of the computers used by very active file-sharers (those who not only download music via P2P services like Kazaa.com, but also make hundreds or thousands of songs on their hard drives available to others) and deliver those IP addresses to a judge with the request that the judge order an Internet service provider or university to reveal the names of the people who own those computers.