Several students have been subpoenaed for downloading illegal music on college’s network
Gustavus students now have a new reason to be cautious on the internet. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently obtained a subpoena from a state court requesting that the college supply the names of several students using illegal file sharing programs to download music.
“What happened in this case is that [the RIAA is] making a case for themselves that the information that they could get from colleges and universities would be helpful to them in pursuing their case against people [whom] they allege are downloading materials that are copyrighted,” said Dean of Students Hank Toutain.
On its official website, the RIAA defines online piracy as “the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn’t resold.”
File sharing, the RIAA’s focus in this case, “in and of itself is not illegal—file sharing is only illegal if you share files that have been copyrighted by someone else without their expressed written permission to share them,” said Director of Gustavus Technology Services Bruce Aarsvold.
“[In response to file sharing,] the RIAA hired a company called Media Century, and Media Century scans all networks—college networks, home networks or any DSL provider—looking for materials that are shared. The next step is that they send out something called a preservation notice. That notice says, ‘We have seen some activity on your campus that may be illegal. Preserve your records for this moment in time.’ They then take their case to a court and a judge issues a subpoena to us to turn over the records that they asked for us to take a picture of months ago,” said Aarsvold. “[The RIAA’s] intent is to raise visibility of this issue on campuses and across the country, and when successful in getting a subpoena issued, the visibility of their cause is raised.”
This issue is not unique to Gustavus. “This really affects every college and university in the country. I think each college in large part is doing what we are doing, and that is when requested by a subpoena, we need to honor that subpoena, but we offer nothing up until that time,” said Aarsvold. “What we tried to do was to make clear to the campus community what’s happening and what we’re doing in response. If specific individuals are named, then we would get in touch with those individuals to let them know that this is the case, and those people may want to take action or not. They may want to consult an attorney, they may want to challenge the subpoena and so forth, but we leave it up to those individuals.”
The college itself cannot officially help students facing prosecution, but it does suggest that students seek outside advice. “We really recommend that an individual engage legal counsel,” said Vice President for Finance Ken Westphal.
While a development of this magnitude is new to Gustavus, there have been prior warning signs. “There have been inquiries before. This is our first example of a national subpoena,” said Westphal.
The RIAA’s recent efforts may not be over just yet. Even students who were not included in the subpoena may still be in danger. “It sounds like it’s their intent to pursue this. What we know seems to suggest that this might continue,” Toutain said.
To avoid problems in the future, students need to be vigilant about the issue. “Many students who are sharing files at Gustavus aren’t even aware that they’re sharing files. By simply installing LimeWire, BitTorrent or eDonkey, without asking for tacit approval from the user, it begins to share them, so that is where some of our students get caught,” said Aarsvold.
As for those facing prosecution, “it’s up to the court to decide what the penalties would be. I assume that the recording industry would seek monetary recovery of some sort,” said Toutain.
Within the student body there are mixed reactions to the issue. Some students agreeing that because this type of downloading is illegal, those guilty of file-sharing should be punished.
“I think that the people that got caught and have to pay fines got what they deserved. The school did warn us about LimeWire and BitTorrent. The people can only be mad at themselves for the trouble they got into. And [the] sad part is, I bet that most of the songs they downloaded they could have just gotten from a friend [instead of downloading them]. Granted, it might take longer, but it costs a lot less,” said First-year Colby Citrowske.
“People always want things that are free. I know people who have downloaded things, and I got a couple things off of Vega. The music industry is getting kind of desperate, though. Music companies want profits even if it means punishing their customers,” said First-year Brendan Nadeau. “However, [downloading] is illegal. The law is the law, and people broke the law. I’m not too happy about [the subpoena], but neither is anyone.”