US recording industry asks students not to pirate music
In what sounds like a rather futile exercise, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sent 400 letters out to 13 US universities advising of potential copyright infringement lawsuits against students who are using computer networks to illegally download music.
The RIAA will probably chop an entire forest down to supply paper for the volume of letters it plans to send out to those pesky students it reckons are taking money away from it. Apparently, the universities in question are also supposed to notify their students that they could be in hot water – as if they don’t have enough admin to deal with.
A recent study by the University of Richmond suggests that over half of college students download music and movies illegally.
“Remember that the habits that they form in college will stay with them for a lifetime,” said RIAA President Cary Sherman. Or at least until they move away from a uni with a super-fast, bandwidth-unlimited network and have to start paying for broadband.
Bothered? Sean Foley, a student at Arizona State University, said, “I know students are active users. But the record companies should be letting people use these services rather than ban them.”
Yeah, you tell ’em Sean.
