Professor Charles Nesson, Founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society has come to the defense of Joel Tenenbaum, who was among dozens of people who appeared in court in RIAA cases without legal help.

The 24-year-old Tenenbaum is a graduate student accused by the RIAA of downloading at least seven songs and making 816 music files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004. He offered to settle the case for $500, but music companies rejected that, demanding $12,000. (See RODRIQUE NGOWI’s story on myway.com–exerpt below.)

“Professor Nesson is argueing that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group - the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA - carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court.”

According to Professor Nesson’s blog, this case is about more than standing up to a Mafia-like RIAA that is out to teach kids like Joel Tenenbaum, “that there is a real world out here. It’s a world of pain imposed on you by power. [It's] time for the recording industry to see that reality has changed, and all their lobbying power in the congress, and all their litigating power in the courts, and all their manipulation of the public mind to equate sharing music with theft, cannot stop the growth of a digital environment in which peers have ability to gather and share.”

Godspeed. 

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Buried in the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (H.R. 4137), which passed 354 - 58 in the house last week, are some chilling and expensive provisions requiring Universities to monitor the file sharing conducted by students on campus networks, or risk loosing accreditation.

Section 488 of the bill requires institutions that receive Federal student aid funds to adopt policies and sanctions related to copyright infringement, including:

• an annual statement warning students that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material (file sharing) may subject the students to civil and criminal liabilities;
• a summary of the penalties for violation of Federal copyright laws;
• a description of the institution’s policies for punishing student file sharing; and
• a description of the institution’s efforts to prevent and detect file sharing.

Section 494 of the bill entitled “CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION” requires each Federal student aid receiving institution to–

• make available to their students information related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials and
• develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.

The White House released a critical statement of the bill on February 6, 2008, mainly opposing racial quotas. The new level of (expensive) oversight that universities would need to conduct in order to continue receiving Federal student aid funds received no mention.

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