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Oklahoma State Surrenders File Sharers to RIAA

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

Following the footsteps of dozens of other colleges, Oklahoma State University on Tuesday forwarded student identities to the Recording Industry Association of America, according to the school's lawyer.

School attorney Michael Scott Fern said the university supplied 11 names to comply with a court order in a lawsuit brought by the RIAA, which accuses the students of unlawfully downloading copyrighted recordings via the school's servers.

"We transmitted the information to plaintiff's attorneys," Fern said in a telephone interview."We sent it out today."

The RIAA has issues dozens of subpoenas to universities nationwide. Most comply and supply the identity of their students after giving the pupils a chance to quash the subpoena at their own expense. RIAA detectives easily learn of the illegal downloading activity by logging on to peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa, where users' sharefolders are visible to all.

The RIAA has sued more than 20,000 for unlawful downloading. Most settle out of court for a few thousand dollars. The RIAA said in court documents in the Oklahoma State case that it was willing to negotiate individual settlements.

Only one RIAA case against an individual has gone to trial. A Minnesota federal jury in October awarded the RIAA -- the record companies' industry lobbying group -- $222,000 after concluding Jammie Thomas pilfered two dozen songs on Kazaa.

Few universities fight the RIAA on their students' behalf.

One that is doing so is the University of Oregon. Among other things, Oregon's attorney general claims disclosing the names is a violation of the students' privacy and that it's impossible to know for sure if a given student was the actual one doing the downloading.

Still, U.S. District Judge David L. Russell ordered Oklahoma State to plead mercy on the court, to tell it why the school should not be held in contempt of court. Reason: the school did not promptly produce the students' names.

According to Russell's order, the university "failed to comply with the subpoena issued by the plaintiffs."

Fern, the university's attorney, said it was an electronic snafu. He said the goods were e-mailed 10 days ago, but the RIAA never got them.

He said he was out sick with the flu for 10 days and said he thought it was taken care of.

When THREAT LEVEL read the judge's order Tuesday, our initial reaction was that the Oklahoma State University was following Oregon University's footsteps -- putting up the good fight for its students. THREAT LEVEL regrets the error.

Photo Chazlarson

See Also:

• Judge Orders RIAA to Pay Legal Fees to Falsely Accused Lawsuit ...
• A Father's True Confession: My Son May or May Not Be a Copyright Thief
• No Defense Fees for Innocent RIAA Litigation Target
• RIAA's Sherman Speaks (Un)Believable 'Catch 22' -- Update
• RIAA Believes MP3s Are A Crime: Why This Matters -- Updated
• What It Looks Like Trying to Get A Straight Answer From the RIAA
• Recording Industry Tells Court (Again) That MP3s Are a Crime

Full post as published by Threat Level on February 12, 2008 (boomark / email).