The Chronicle

Issue date: 11/14/08 Section: News
Last update: 11/14/08 at 4:54 AM EST

Larry Moneta

Duke will now require agencies like the Recording Industry Association of America to provide evidence of copyright infringement before forwarding pre-litigation notices to students, the Office of Student Affairs said Tuesday.

The University has stepped up its support for students with the new policy, scheduled to go into effect before the end of the semester. In the past, the University did not provide student information to the RIAA without a subpoena, but forwarded all pre-litigation notices to students without evaluating the validity of the infringement claims.

Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said that under the new policy, the University will not forward a pre-litigation notice from the RIAA unless there is evidence that a third-party download was facilitated by the Duke student in question.

"What we're saying is that in order for us to pass on a settlement letter to a student, we're going to start requiring evidence that someone actually downloaded from that student," Moneta said. "If the RIAA can't prove that actual illegal behavior occurred, then we're not going to comply."

Individuals cited for copyright infringement by the RIAA are known only by an IP address that has been flagged for uploading one or more illegal files. The RIAA polices peer-to-peer networks and collects evidence of infringement against certain IP addresses, forwarding infringement letters to universities that then follow up with the individuals.

In the past year, the RIAA has sent more than 1,000 infringement notices to Duke students, including more than 40 pre-litigation notices, 21 settlement offers and eight subpoenas. Over the past three months, the RIAA has filed three civil lawsuits against Duke students for sharing copyrighted material over P2P networks like Limewire and Kazaa.

Shawn, a junior whose name has been changed to protect his identity, settled with the RIAA for $3,000 but said the playing field would have been more level if he had had access to a lawyer when he received a pre-litigation notice from the University.

"Nothing is going to be solved until Duke gets a student lawyer to contest this in a joint case," he said. "When you get the e-mail from the RIAA, you have no idea what to do, or who to go to. Most kids can't afford a lawyer, but if one lawyer is at Duke to file a joint case they could probably get [the RIAA] to drop it."

Without a University policy requiring the RIAA to supply evidence of alleged illegal activity, students may have been at risk for erroneous claims of infringement. Many experts have disputed the soundness of the RIAA's methods of detecting copyright infringement, said Owen Astrachan, professor of the practice of computer science and co-director of undergraduate studies for the department. The RIAA's current policing software can generate false positives that wrongly implicate users for illegal downloads, he explained.

But for one student who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the new P2P policy is as frustrating than having to pay thousands of dollars in fines in the first place.

"So basically what they're saying now is that before this they didn't have proof? They allowed for 'not good proof' to be shown beforehand, or just not shown at all?" he said. "So now Duke is requiring evidence-so what? It's still not going to change anything."

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