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Four months ago, I received an e-mail on FirstClass from a lawyer who represented the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The letter implicated my IP address here at the University of Maine in copyright infringement and said that the user of this address had to pay a $3,000 settlement or await the RIAA to bring the case to federal court, where he or she would be asked to settle for an amount of $250,000.
They did not know my name; they just had an IP address. The first e-mail I received was not even a direct subpoena, but a threatening letter that was directed through the IT Department and then to me. The letter from the RIAA came as an attachment on the e-mail from an IT representative who wrote me a message riddled with ambiguity.
The IT member, representing the University of Maine, presented me with no clear explanation as to the validity of this letter; they simply wrote to me, “view this message with extreme acknowledgment and consideration.” The IT Department, I thought, found this e-mail to be a scam, and my family and friends thought the same as well. If I was being sued due to downloading music, wouldn’t I be given a hard copy through the mail about it, and addressed to my name? Wouldn’t I even be given a warning?
A few weeks ago I received another letter notifying me that the university had to give the RIAA my name and information and the settlement had now reached $4,000. These are just a few examples of the RIAA’s frivolous steps of coercion.
Dean of Students Robert Dana had notified me that the RIAA could sue the university if they did not release the names. However, based upon my research, the RIAA has never sued a university.
The RIAA is also monopolizing their efforts by obtaining the most amount of money possible by pooling these John Does together in one subpoena. This is illegal based upon the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 20. The University of Maine should account for this rule and throw out the RIAA’s subpoena on students until they come after their IP addresses individually.
I was accused of having two IP addresses. I’m aware now that one of these addresses could have been from a wireless router. This means that I will be responsible for whatever songs these individuals download through the wireless connection I am linked to.
I am an avid music fan. I’ve spent probably $500 on CDs, and have purchased many albums based upon artists’ songs I downloaded on LimeWire. This is even more upsetting because many bands elect to put their music on YouTube or MySpace for people to listen to for free. How is LimeWire any different?
There are many ways to make an example out of someone, but what the RIAA is doing is unjust. College students’ futures could be in jeopardy from this. Some are forced to file bankruptcy – all because they decided to download Kanye’s slammin’ new jam. Shame on you. If the music is distributed by a downloader, charges could go up to the million-dollar range in damages.
In the book “A Civil Action,” a true-life story, families sued W.R. Grace for causing their children to die from leukemia and other illnesses because the company had knowingly polluted the town’s water supply by dumping toxic chemicals in local ponds and sewers. Each family was given less than $500,000 dollars for the settlement, after small-firm lawyer Jan Schlichtmann had lost everything. How do the deaths of children compare with downloading music illegally in a civil court room?
There is something undeniably wrong with our justice system. Companies like the RIAA are affluent enough to hire the most expensive lawyers, which gives them enough freedom to brush past our due process rights. I cannot stand for the RIAA breaking our rights and calling for outrageous sums of money from college students, and universities should not either.
Kyle Kernan is a second-year English major.
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