RIAA Demands Payments from College Students
Fri Mar 9, 2007 10:46AM EST
See Comments (832)
How would you like to get this email from your college kid, the one you're shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for to pay for his education?
"Hi Mom: The recording industry says I owe them $3,000 or they're going to sue me! Help!"
Help, indeed. As I wrote in a previous post, the Recording Industry Association of America is getting tough on illegal file sharing of copyrighted music, and taking aim where sharing music from the Internet is as common as Frisbees, college campuses.
The RIAA has sent letters to 50 Ohio University students telling them each to pay $3,000 for illegally shared music files to avoid lawsuits accusing them of stealing songs from the Internet, the AP reports. The association, which is stepping up its legal action on college campuses, has already sued more than 18,000 computers users since 2003, and more than 1,000 of them were computer users at 130 universities.
As Chris Null notes in his post on Steve Jobs' stand against Digital Rights Management (DRM), unwieldy restrictions on the use of purchased digital music, the recording industry association's litigious ways are going to destroy any remaining goodwill the music industry has with its customers.
Music services such as Ruckus and Napster are offering free music downloads while kids are in college to try to stem the flow of pirated songs on college campuses. But they come with restrictions that irk college students. The Ruckus songs must stay on your computer to be free; there's a fee to transfer them to MP3 players. And Napster offers free downloads to students—but the music is theirs to keep only while they're in school. If you want to keep a collection amassed during college, then you'll need to pay Napster in the end.
Seems the music industry's DRM approach is hitting a wall, but what's the answer? Maybe Amazon's rumored approach to sell unrestricted songs for a buck is the best shot. What do you think?
To help you mull it over:
Music Industry Steps Up Campus Complaints
Why College Kids Are Turning Down Free (Legal) Music
"Free" Music for College Kids
Amazon to Sell DRM-Free MP3s?
Comments on RIAA Demands Payments from College Students
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2 Posted by awoodsom on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:00PM EDT Report Abuse
RIAA forcing college kids to pay $3000 is their idea of good business practices??? Give me a break. In high school in the 80s all my friends used to make copies of our casset tapes too. In the digital age it is just easier. All the RIAA has to do is make it less of a pain to buy music than to steel it. So college kids might not pay for it at first, but my the time they have jobs they will be paying customers. Software companies used to look past college kids using coppied software as research shows that when they got older they would buy the software they used in college.
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3 Posted by robcollins606 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:45PM EDT Report Abuse
if i got that letter i'd just laugh tear it up and throw it in the trash
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4 Posted by xsemperfi4lifex on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:53PM EDT Report Abuse
sites like napster need 2 offer free downloads to military personel
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5 Posted by hanksta2 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:16PM EDT Report Abuse
Good luck making that stand up in court. It's really worth filing a $3,000.00 lawsuit when you have to pay $5,000.00 in legal fees.
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6 Posted by empwillkill on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:54PM EDT Report Abuse
this is why p2p networks will always flourish. i recently signed up for emusic. and i have to admit it is horrible, can never find the song you want... the riaa is a big screaming baby. youll never stop p2p filesharing its out of your control. youre wasting more money trying to stop something that cannot be stopped. morons...
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7 Posted by joshrocksvegas10 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:41PM EDT Report Abuse
I fits illegal, why are these programs around? WHy sue the kids instead of the program?
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8 Posted by sierrablue73 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:21PM EDT Report Abuse
good work ...and also they need to look into suing the napsters of the internet for making these illegal practices readily available ...
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9 Posted by caljamscott on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:16PM EDT Report Abuse
It's beyond me WHO in their Right Mind wants to download this JUNK anyway! Forgive me, I'm a Social Reformer. The ENTIRE Music Industry's on his way OUT
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10 Posted by timl8l on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:10PM EDT Report Abuse
That's disgusting. Picking on college students trying to get an education. It's also completely futile. Today's college students ahve spent the last 8+ years pirating music, movies, and software... and are going to continue.
1 Posted by super_dave_1984 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:49PM EDT Report Abuse
Or the people could just download Audacity and record wht they are listening to, then burn it to CD or save the file on their computer. No downloading of the song at all. Just need a stereo headphone extension cable with male ends on each end and a splitter connected to your speaker jack. Run the cable from the splitter to your line-in and record what you hear. The quality is very good too.