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By Jon Newton 1/18/06 More than 30 students at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst want i2hub to pay the $3,750 the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is trying to extort from each of them to 'settle' claims that they traded copyrighted files online, says the university's Student Legal Services Office, quoted in the Wall Street Journal. The RIAA is owned by the Big Four record labels Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI. i2hub, founded and run by Wayne Chang, 22, networked some 240 universities, companies and government organizations on Internet2. |
 Jon Newton |
The RIAA and brother entertainment industry enforcement organization the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) bought their way into Internet2 to, "study advanced content distribution technologies," they claim.
Professor Ed Felten once described the i2hub as being like a, "set of express lanes for the Internet, built so that network traffic between Internet2 member institutions can go faster" and, "It shows, brilliantly, just how effective p2p communications can be," we said in our story about its RIAA-forced closure.
The Legal Services demand was sent December 16, warning if a reply wasn't received in 30 days, "the group would file a lawsuit under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, which forbids companies from engaging in unfair or deceptive practices," says the WSJ, going on:
"On Monday, Charles Baker, Mr. Chang's attorney, wrote in a letter to the group that i2hub 'has no intention of making any offer of settlement because it has no liability in this matter'."
Student Legal Services Office lawyer Lisa Kent sent the letter but, "declined to comment Tuesday, saying only that 'the letter speaks for itself'," the story goes on
"The group said it represents 42 students, but named 31 in the letter. Those students either didn't respond to emails or declined to comment."
Baker, a Houston lawyer who's representing Chang for free and also represents Morpheus owner StreamCast Networks, "wrote in his response letter that i2hub never claimed to be endorsed by the university, and that each i2hub user was required to agree not to commit copyright infringement before they were allowed to use the software," states the WSJ:
The Student Legal Services Office is, "supported by student fees and located on campus, though does not represent the university itself, a university spokesman said," the story says.
It would be interesting to know who originally dreamed up the Sue i2hub scheme.
The RIAA claims a file shared on the p2p networks equals a lost sale, although it's never been able to support this contention.
It also says people who share copyrighted digital files are "criminals" and "thieves," despite the fact 'shared' means 'shared' and no one has been deprived in physical terms, or in terms of value, of something they formerly owned.
Jon Newton is the editor of p2pnet.net
and is a regular contributer to MP3 Newswire. Jon's site is devoted to the politics
of digital music and his insights as well as those of his co-writers can be
read there. We urge you to explore it.
Other MP3 stories:
The Digital
Media Winners of 2005
The Digital
Media Losers of 2005
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