University of Tennessee Students VS RIAA
Last week it was reported by the News Sentinel that the University of Tennessee is ranked fourth in the nation for illegal downloads. The latest news, as reported by yahoo.com, is that the RIAA is going to send out settlement offers to University of Tennessee students before they are sued.
This is yet another example of the RIAA wasting time and money harassing individuals. You remember the report a few years back of a 12 year old girl being sued by the RIAA. Since then the RIAA has realized that it probably isn’t getting good publicity targeting minors so they decided to hit up that devious college crowd. Plus they have an added insurance policy if the university is a government institution. Worse case, they are probably figuring for a big settlement from the government (ie tax money).
The reality is that suing individuals does not fix the problem. There are an abundance of anonymous ways to transfer music across the Internet. Consider Filetopia, an old but slick software package that offers anonymous file transfer and servers that are overseas outside of US jurisdiction. If the RIAA is serious about curbing the p2p file transfer scene (which I am doubtful is even possible) they need to find ways to encourage people to buy music legitimately rather than trying to discourage them through lawsuits.
Amen to this post! I am so tired of the RIAA trying to get money from people who they know have no money (i.e.: college students and minors). They can’t stop file sharing, and music artists still make plenty of money so I don’t see what’s the big deal about downloading.