RIAA v. the People: Four Years Later
September 4, 2007
On September 8, 2003, the RIAA sued 261 American music fans for sharing music on Peer to Peer(P2P) networks, setting off an unprecedented legal campaign by the RIAA against its own customers. On September 8th, 2007, we will mark the fourth year anniversary of the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) legal campaign against music piracy where the RIAA has threatened, settled or filed lawsuits against more than 20,000 individuals.
These individuals did not comprise of criminals or commercial music pirates but instead included children, grandparents, single mothers and a whole lot of college students, all of whom have been slapped with those thousand dollar lawsuits. The rate of these lawsuits shows no signs of slowing down but instead have increased with the most recent being the 400 lawsuits per month against college students as part of the RIAA’s new strategy against universities and college students.
Inspite of all these lawsuits, music sharing over P2P networks remains as popular as ever inspite of the increasing awareness of the RIAA lawsuits. One thing seems clear from all this, suing music fans does not seem to be the solution to music piracy. RIAA might be winning legal battles but it is losing the war on music piracy for sure.
RIAA started off suing the P2P companies like Kazaa, iMesh and others. Most of these bowing to legal pressure complied by announcing “filters” in their technology. I still remember the day when SuprNova shut down… just like that one day. Even though Piratebay relaunched SuprNova, nothing can ever come close to the SuprNova of the old.
The EFF has compiled a nice report called RIAA at 4 profiling the industry’s shifting legal tactics, which have familiarized campus technologists with John Doe subpoenas and pre-litigation notices.
In what would later seem a prelude to the lawsuit campaign against individual file-sharers, the Recording industry in April 2003 sued four college students for developing and maintaining search engines that allowed students to search for and download files from other students on their local campus networks.
The lawsuits named Joseph Nievelt, a student at Michigan Technological University; Daniel Peng, a student at Princeton University; and Aaron Sherman and Jesse Jordan, both students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The complaint principally alleged that the students were running an oncampus search engine for music, using software such as Phynd, FlatLan, and DirectConnect to search campus local area networks and index files being shared by students using the file sharing protocols included in Microsoft Windows.
The complaints also alleged that the students had, themselves, downloaded infringing music. The students ultimately settled the cases for between $12,000 and $17,500 each. In Jesse Jordan’s case, the settlement amount “happens to be the same amount of money that is the total of his bank account. That is money he has saved up over the course of working three years … to save money for college.” He later stated that he did not believe he had done anything wrong and had settled to avoid the legal expenses of fighting the lawsuit.
These lawsuits, the first filed against individuals for file sharing, caused an uproar, with both students and University officials expressing dismay at the heavyhanded tactics of the recording industry. At the time, it seemed hard to believe that suing individual college students would soon be not only standard operating procedure for the recording industry. [Read more]
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Student builds a Ford Mustang using Beer Cans
August 14, 2007
A British Student builds a life size model of his favorite car, a 1965 Ford Mustang using nothing but beer cans.
This incredible feat was performed by a Jack Kirby and required almost 4000 beer cans and spread over a period of three years, reports the Daily Mirror.
Jack Kirby, 23, an art & design student downed a four pack Budweiser every day.
“It was hard work,” he said.
After a pause to admire his handiwork, Jack, who studies near his home in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, added: “I think I’ll have a couple of cans to celebrate.”
Budweiser said: “We would like to congratulate Jack on his efforts.”
At AskStudent we would like to say ” WoW. Welcome to the club brother”
How to get Free Soda from a Soda Machine
August 13, 2007
Here is a demonstration video on how you can get free soda or pop from any regular soda machine you might find on your campus whether at the cafeteria, in your dorms or any where else. Free Soda rules !! Now where do i get free beer from ?
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!How Physics should be Taught
August 7, 2007
Seems like couple of enterprising students found a new way to teach physics at College. I have seen this do very well $$$ in a Van Vilder movie.
The Wedgie is the Number One Underwear Concern for Guys
June 21, 2007
According to a survey by Jockey International, most guys, over 46% of them, dread the wedgie as their most uncomfortable underwear situation. Apparently, their high school torments still seem to be fresh in the minds of most adults whose torments didn’t end with their schoolyard bullies or on the playground.
Though not the Atomic wedgie variety administered by drunken members of the JV football team, this self-inflicted wedgie beat out Elastic Stretching Out Too Much (40%) and Scratchy Tags/Tags That Stick Out (36%), to be the number one problem guys battle with their underwear, according to the survey results (Actually wearing “tightie whities” was apparently not considered a “problem” in this survey.)
And when one of these situations occurs, what did guys say was the most embarrassing place to have to “make an adjustment”? According to the survey, most guys (45%) dread doing a little shifting during a job interview. (”We’d love to have you on our team, Bob, but it appears you have a bad case of panty crickets.”) This was followed by Romantic Dinner in a distant second with 21%, (I guess pulling a wedgie out of your crack over some prime rib and Chianti doesn’t bother most guys), and Business Meeting with 18%. At the bottom of the list was Meeting Her Parents for the First Time with only 11% caring if they did a little clean-and-jerk in front of her mom and dad. (Well, if it didn’t bother her over dinner…)
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!Student Raps in his College Physics Class
June 17, 2007
Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?
June 3, 2007
So, at this college there was an extra credit question “Is Hell Endothermic or Exothermic?”.
This is what one kid wrote:
First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since, there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.
Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. So, if hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose (i.e.,Hell is exothermic).
Of course, if hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, than the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over (i.e.,Hell is endothermic). So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given by Ms.Therese Banyan during my freshman year, “That it will be a cold night in hell before I go out with you,” and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having a relationship with her, the second case cannot be true. Therefore, hell is exothermic.
The kid was the only one who got credit
Extra Credit
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