The Recording Industry Association of America announced yesterday that it would be filing 405 new copyright infringement lawsuits against users of Internet2 connections at 18 different universities. Among the suits are 25 being filed against RPI students for infringing activity on i2hub. A few weeks ago, the RIAA targeted another set of infringers on regular peer-to-peer networks as part of a continuing effort to end illegal file-sharing. This recent crack down of the RIAA on students is a result of what has been deemed as an “emerging epidemic of music theft.”
i2hub uses Internet2, described by the RIAA as “an advanced network created by participating colleges and universities for important academic research.” However, due to its fast downloading capabilities, many students have been using i2hub to download movies and music through sharing the files of users online. The RIAA said that students mistakenly assume that their illegal activities cannot be traced in the closed environment of I2.
Letters were sent yesterday to university presidents asking them to “take action to stop illegal file sharing” related not only to P2P or i2hub, but to other piracy servers.
“We think that any policymaker or campus administrator would be outraged to learn that a special, high-speed Internet technology designed for academic research has been hijacked for illegal purposes,” said Cary Sherman, President of the RIAA. The press release continued, “Surely taxpayers would not want their money—through federal agency grants and R&D funding—facilitating the rampant theft of intellectual property on our college campuses.”
Theresa Bourgeois, Director of Media Relations at RPI, commented on the recent infringements cases related to i2hub use by RPI students: “Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has been notified that the Recording Industry Association of America is taking legal action against many college students around the country, including several from Rensselaer, for allegedly providing access to copyrighted materials via the Internet. The RIAA has not initiated legal action against Rensselaer.”
Bourgeois further elaborated, “The RIAA asserts that some of the alleged activities were conducted over Rensselaer networks. The Institute has a long-standing policy that prohibits students, faculty, and staff members from using Rensselaer-owned and operated equipment for unethical or illegal purposes.”
In this initial batch of suits related to i2hub, the RIAA decided to limit the number of lawsuits to 25 per school, although records indicate that the number of infringements is much higher. Sherman also said “we cannot let this high-speed network become a zone of lawlessness where the normal rules don’t apply...By taking this initial action, we are putting students and administrators everywhere on notice at there are consequences for unlawful uses of this special network.”
When asked about how the RIAA was obtaining the information related to infringements, Sherman said that they would not detail their investigative techniques. He was also asked if users at campuses that had entered into a campus wide agreement with a service such as Napster had been targeted. He responded, that none “jump[ed] out” at him, but that he was not sure.
Other students also being sued for illegal activity on i2hub come from such schools as Princeton University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Drexel University, and Rochester Institute of Technology.
