Copyright Law

Oklahoma State University turns over student identities, report Ars Technica and Wired.com

By Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman

Ars Technica and Wired.com report that Oklahoma State University, after receiving the order to show cause in Arista v. Does 1-11, promptly turned over the identities of its students to the RIAA:

Ars Technica:

RIAA gets Does' names after school threatened with contempt
By Eric Bangeman | Published: February 13, 2008 - 11:33AM CT

Hours after a federal court judge ordered Oklahoma State University to show cause why it shouldn't be held in contempt for failing to respond to an RIAA subpoena, attorneys for the school e-mailed a list of students' names to the RIAA's attorneys. But now that the RIAA has what it wanted, the group is unsure about how to go about sending out its prelitigation settlement letters. Some of the students are represented by an attorney, meaning that the RIAA is barred from contacting them directly.

The case in question involves 11 OSU students accused of using P2P networks to infringe on the Big Four labels' copyrights. The students have fought hard to keep their identities secret, filing motions to quash the subpoenas and later attacking the credibility of the RIAA's expert witness. The judge denied the motion to quash the RIAA's subpoenas in November, ordering OSU to provide the identities of the students it believed were behind the IP addresses flagged by MediaSentry.

That's where things got a little bit sticky. In a filing on Monday, the RIAA noted that OSU said it would provide the info in late November. Further requests by the plaintiffs' attorneys in December, January, and "several times" already this month went unanswered, with one exception. On February 1, the university sent the RIAA's attorneys an e-mail that referenced an attachment containing the data sought by the labels, but the attachment wasn't actually attached.

Wired.com:

Oklahoma State Surrenders File Sharers to RIAA
By David Kravets EmailFebruary 12, 2008 | 7:10:33 PM

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."

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Full post as published by Recording Industry vs The People on February 13, 2008 (boomark / email).