Recently I was brought up to date on the issues of downloading music illegally which honestly came as a huge shock to me. Personally, I've always found it too time consuming and way too difficult to understand so I never really bothered. However, a good number of college students around the world have mastered the art of pirating music and will pay for it very soon.
MaineToday.com is one of the many publications warning college music pirates that the Recording Industry Association of America is coming after them full force. The RIAA has sent out letters to universities so they can identify violaters by using their IP address and give them two options: confront the RIAA and settle or prepared to be sued. The article points out that since February 28, the RIAA has sent out more than 800 letters to 36 different universities around the country where they found IP addresses that contained stolen music from the internet. You would think that the universities would do everything in their power to help their students, but however, that is not the case.
I'm currently working on a survey at Inside Higher Ed and found that the University of Wisconsin System is refusing to forward letters to their students because they feel they are not obligated to do so. Instead the said that they do not wish to insert themselves in a legal issue between the RIAA and alleged copyright violators. They also believe that an IP address doesn't necessarily correspond to a specific person. The University of Maine System is going to the extreme in keeping their students safe, but also allowing those who do not respond to the email to not be held accountable for his or her actions. The system will notify students, but if students fail to pick up notices or fail to respond to RIAA, the university is refusing to give out names of those students to RIAA in order to adhere to their policy: they are not permitted to reveal the students' names through their Internet identification.
Stephen Nelson, director of the office of standards at the University of Southern Maine, said students face a $35 fine and two-week loss of access to the university's network. And following in the long tradition of slaps on the wrist, students have to watch a 10-minute video made by the RIAA and write a one-page paper on why they should not steal music.
The two extremes have been listed... however, what about the schools that are helping their students through this, giving them legal advice, even offering university legal assistance if available? The media loves drama, don't they? Instead of reading about the positive aspects of situations, the negative ones are always portrayed to obtain gasps from readers. It proves to be a silly way to obtain interest from readers and to me, it proves a certain type of bias as well. Just because a school is following protocol, they are tagged as not newsworthy in this case. Let's talk about schools like Boston University or Columbia University who have been sending settlement letters out to their students and have been counseling them as to what their choices are for obtaining legal advice. That seems not only newsworthy to me, but also praise worthy!
I may be playing the overly sensitive card here, I don't know. But I feel that as journalists, we should be seeking out news in a balanced manner, both negative and positive so that institutions, organizations and the general public get the attention they deserve.
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