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RIAA Turns up the College Heat (Slyck)
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As many former college students can recall, Napster was the quintessential resource for MP3s back in the day. It was a no hold barred extravaganza that lasted nearly two years until the lights went out on the once mighty 1.5 million-member P2P network. When that failed to deter file-sharing, the next move was to sue individual file-sharers.
That maneuver appeared to have worked to some extent on FastTrack, a once mighty P2P network that was accessible via the Kazaa Media Desktop. However even that tactic has failed to decisively negate unauthorized distribution, as micro-networks began springing up on college campuses. Once again, college students were able to share in smaller - albeit resourceful - Local Area Networks immune from the prying eyes of the music industry.
Yet this isn't the only method used to share files. Many still share outside of the college network with applications such as LiweWire, Ares Galaxy, eMule, and a plethora of others. Regardless, the results remain the same; college P2P usage remains an enormous problem for the music industry. Because of its massive scale, it's likely extremely difficult for the RIAA to target the hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of college students engaging in online distribution.
The only option is to pressure colleges and universities. In an AP article published today, the RIAA has made its intentions clear - that it will ramp up its efforts against the colleges and universities that are providing network access. Ohio and Purdue, for example, have already received 1,287 and 1,068 complaints respectively since fall of 2006. This is a massive increase from 2005 - 2006, when each school only received 232 and 37 complaints.
Marshall University appears to have the least amount of complaints among the top 25 schools listed, as the number only jumped from 154 to 331.
"It's something we feel we have to do," RIAA President Carey Sherman said. "We have to let people know that if they engage in this activity, they are not anonymous."
So the pressure is on the colleges and universities, who can expect many more complaints in the coming months. If they don't resolve the situation, it's possible the school itself may be subject to an RIAA lawsuit. However this bantering has gone back and forth for many years, seven to be exact, and the situation is yet to be resolved. It remains to be seen whether additional massive pressure will finally break the trend. |
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Published on 22-02-2007 |
