Harvard Law tells RIAA to "take a hike"

[chuckskull]

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Law professor Charles Nesson and John Palfrey, director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society (which Nesson co-founded), made their position clear. "Recently, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America, Cary Sherman, wrote to Harvard to challenge the university administration to stop acting as a 'passive conduit' for students downloading music," they wrote in 2007. "We agree. Harvard and the 22 universities to which the RIAA has sent 'pre-litigation notices' ought to take strong, direct action... and tell the RIAA to take a hike."

Those notices were an attempt by the RIAA to get schools involved in the litigation process. Universities would, in theory, pass RIAA settlement letters on to students after being provided with an IP address suspected of illicit file-sharing. The schools would be "doing their part," while the recording industry got its missives delivered without needing to bother with courts and judges and subpoenas.

Spot on in my opinion, groups like the RIAA have been riding roughshod over the law for years. They have sued hundreds of people and never paid an artist a penny. Nice to see them get a very large middle finger from someone with the legal knowledge to back it up.

Their tactics are not the way to stop piracy. It wont be piracy that kills the entertainment industry, it will be groups like the RIAA who insist on treating customers like criminals, alienating them and artists alike in the process.