While file-sharing technology has revolutionized our ability to share information with one other, its illegal use for pirating copyrighted materials is at unacceptable levels at Stanford. On March 30, 2007 Stanford was listed as one of the Motion Picture Association of America’s top 25 worst offenders (http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1969). We have also had a steep increase in the number of piracy complaints filed against us by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). From September 2006 – January 2007, Stanford received nearly as many Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints as we received in the entire 2005-06 academic year. Of these complaints, 90% are directed at undergraduate and graduate students: students who are jeopardizing the Stanford network by using it as platform to steal songs, movies, TV shows, video games, books and software. As of May 2007, the RIAA has identified seven Stanford network connections that have been targeted for its “pre-litigation” notification program (http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/022807.asp). The RIAA has said that it will continue to send out pre-litigation notices each month. Keeping up with the number of file-sharing complaints coming in under the DMCA has required almost three full-time Stanford employees. It is an irresponsible waste of Stanford’s resources—your tuition dollars—to spend so much staff time responding to copyright violations.Yes, of course Stanford is concerned about the cost of tuition, when it can be used to justify some ulterior motive. The announcement goes on to say that students will be fined $100 for their first offense, $500 for their second, and $1000 for their third. This should be self-evident, but an institution the size of Stanford has the power to actually resist the hypocrisy of the RIAA, especially if it banded together with other universities (as a Harvard Law professor urged). But instead, it caves and passes along the injustice to the students, complete with the false use of rhetoric of "stealing." Meanwhile, Stanford continues to cater to its own trust fund (which continues to grow). Let this stand as yet another reason why never to donate to the main trust fund of any university - if you're in the position to donate and have the inclination, give to specific programs instead that you know can benefit and will use the money properly.
Richard () (URL) - 16 December '07 - 04:25
In defense of Stanford’s trust fund, the school has been pledging to use lots more of it to pay tuition for students from less wealthy families. Always nice to see. (I have an obscenely wealthy relative who donates lots of money to the Farm, but always in very targeted ways—set up this program here, obtain matching funding from the school to provide those benefits there, that sort of thing.)Durf () (URL) - 26 March '08 - 03:21
Yeah, but they essentially only chose to do that (e.g. give tuition breaks) after both Harvard and Yale did it first. The trust fund doesn’t directly relate to the copyright issue, it’s just sad that the institution which houses Lawrence Lessig doesn’t take a more proactive stance regarding copyright reform. In any case, it is good to donate money in more targeted ways regardless of the institution – if I ever “make it big” (not going to happen) then I would most seriously consider giving money back directly to music programs and departments, for example.Aaron () (URL) - 29 March '08 - 14:42