The Boston Globe reports:
The Recording Industry Association of America has opened one of its biggest assaults yet on illegal file swapping with warning letters to 13 colleges, including the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, asking them to identify on-campus file swappers who the industry intends to pursue for copyright violations.
The RIAA says those letters are just the first in a new wave of notifications heading for college campuses. But four years and 18,000 lawsuits into the courthouse campaign against illegal downloads, some question whether the tough tactics are working.
"We think this is clearly, exactly the wrong direction to be taking," said Corynne McSherry, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group and vocal critic of the music industry's campaign. "It's very clear that illegal downloading is continuing apace and is doing just fine."
The music industry concedes piracy remains rampant. RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said 80 million tunes were legally downloaded last December, but illegal downloads were nearly six times higher at 466 million songs.
Full text here.
I don't know about you, but the RIAA fighting college kids is like the weak high school teacher trying to keep a rowdy class in line. He keeps saying, "Come on, guys, can we please focus on the class?" and a few kids listen; many kids actually look like they're paying attention. But in all honesty, most of the class doesn't really care and will keep disobeying because it's fun, easy, and there's a sense of defiance and rebellion.
Thoughts?
