MediaSentry, a copyright protection service, is monitoring peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and providing user information to record companies.
Eighty Ohio University students received pre-litigation settlement letters this week from a law firm affiliated with the Recording Industry Association of America, which has been leading the charge against illegal file sharing since online bulletin boards were used to share music in the early 90s.
The Internet provider addresses of 50 network users were identified in the letters. If an address is traced to a dorm room, anyone in that room receives a letter.
As the methods of sharing copyrighted media have become more technologically advanced and secretive, so have those used by companies who profit from catching pirates.
How sharers are caught
Limewire and Ares users are the targets of pre-litigation settlement letters during this round of RIAA notifications. Only U.S. users are being prosecuted.
MediaSentry, a service of SafeNet, gathers the IP addresses of users sharing files through the P2P services. The IP addresses eventually make their way to the law firm retained by the big four record companies ' EMI Recorded Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
MediaSentry representatives refused to comment on how they obtain information and referred inquiries to the RIAA. Although a spokesperson confirmed that the RIAA has a business relationship with MediaSentry, she refused to discuss it.
This guy is sitting at MediaSentry with a thumb up his nose (catching file sharers)
said Ray Beckerman of the New York City law firm Vandenberg and Feliu. He has consulted with more than 100 people asked to settle by the RIAA and is involved in multiple high-profile cases against the trade group. The data the company collects isn't admissible in federal court and is used solely to pressure people into settling with the RIAA, he said.
There are three contracts between MediaSentry and the RIAA but none has been made available to lawyers or the general public, Beckerman said.
I'm optimistic that I will see them G? but (the judge) might say I can't make them public Beckerman said. The RIAA has fought his requests to see the contracts in court, but their arguments won't prevent the contracts from being revealed, he said.
Only people who aren't technology savvy are caught, while the really serious pirates escape MediaSentry's notice, Beckerman said.
If you're downloading you're not anonymous on the Internet
said Jim Graham, a spokesman for BayTSP, which monitors P2P networks for clients, including the Motion Picture Association of America. Over the last two years
copyright holders have become more sensitized to digital piracy.
BayTSP sends Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices to Internet service providers, including universities, when it identifies file sharers' IP addresses. It typically takes BayTSP less than the time it takes for a movie to download over a broadband connection ' two to four hours ' to identify sharers, Graham said.
Once a DMCA notice arrives at OU, a student's Internet access is shut off until the student contacts the IT help desk and resolves the matter.
If the university receives a pre-settlement litigation letter, the IP address must be matched with a student's name. This requires searching IP address logs for all network users kept by the university. How long the university keeps those logs is sensitive security information, said Edward Carter, an OU network security analyst.
The University of North Dakota received pre-settlement litigation letters, but will not be forwarding two of them to students.
UND only keeps Internet provider address logs for 30 days, making it impossible to identify students based on IP addresses more than a month old, said Dorette Kerian, director of Information Technology Systems and Services at UND.
The RIAA has threatened to file subpoenas for student information from the universities that fail to forward letters to students, but UND can't provide the RIAA with information it doesn't have, she said.
Settle or be sued
Colorado law firm Holme Roberts & Owens is representing record companies whose songs have been illegally shared, according to the form letter sent to students. Calls to the firm's lawyer handling the cases, Donald Kelso, were redirected to a RIAA spokesperson who refused
to comment.
The Center for Student Legal Services will not represent students facing lawsuits because they are usually filed in federal court. Students can seek legal advice from the Center if they have paid the university's $8 legal fee.
The RIAA asks for $3,750 from users who have made available less than a thousand files and $4,250 for those who have uploaded more, Beckerman said.
I think they're crumbling
said Beckerman of the RIAA's law firm Holme, Robert and Owens. In a case last week, a lawyer for the firm had to ask a judge for more time because he was bogged down filing motions for other cases, he continued.
Beckerman urges students to band together and share the cost of taking the RIAA to court, or fighting their lawsuits by themselves.
They try to make every case into World War III if you try and fight them
Beckerman said. They want to make the cost of litigation as high as possible.
The future of music
Every time the RIAA wins
it gets worse for (the music) industry
said Felix Oberholzer-Gee, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Business.
After centralized file-sharing networks like Napster were sued, people moved to harder-to-track networks like Limewire and Kazaa. Users will likely react to the current RIAA crackdown by moving to networks that offer more anonymity, like BitTorrent, he said.
They are more closely guarded communities
Oberholzer-Gee said of decentralized networks based on the BitTorrent protocol. Unlike centralized networks, decentralized networks cannot be easily disrupted because they are not heavily dependant on a server.
In some European countries, downloading music for personal use is legal, Oberholzer-Gee said. This makes it difficult to stop file sharing, which often takes place on international networks.
The key change will not happen on the technology side
but in how companies incorporate (illegal file sharing) into their business models
