RIAA and Contributed by Organizations or Campuses

This is an unabridged transcript of Don Reisingers interview with the RIAA.

The RIAA has quickly become one of the most disliked organizations in the world. Working ostensibly with the interests of the artists in mind, the organization has single-handedly instituted a policy of lawsuits and education in an attempt to curb the piracy of music.

The Oregon state attorney general is resisting the music labels' demand for consumer identities, including 17 students at the University of Oregon.

"On Nov 22 the House Education and Labor Committee approved H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (COAA). The name sounds like something everyone can support — but the devil is truly in the details. "

"Earlier this year, Ohio University finished atop the recording industry’s infamous list of institutions receiving the most copyright-infringement notices. But these days the university is singing a much happier tune: Campus officials say a ban on peer-to-peer networking has cut down on piracy without restricting legal file sharing."

The author suggests that schools may be purposely not retaining IP logging data on students to protect them from copyright infringement lawsuits.

"Nineteen students at George Washington University are about to become the next targets of the recording industry's wrath."

"This week The Badger Herald, the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s student newspaper, profiles “Elizabeth,” one of the growing number of college students who have received pre-litigation notices from the Recording Industry Association of America. The piece is well worth reading: It sheds a lot of light on how the notices, which encourage students to settle file-sharing claims out of court, are putting colleges in sticky situations."

"After just four hours of deliberation and two days of testimony, a jury found that Jammie Thomas was liable for infringing the record labels' copyrights on all 24 the 24 recordings at issue in the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded $9,250 in statutory damages per song, after finding that the infringement was "willful," out of a possible total of $150,000 per song. The grand total? $222,000 in damages."

"Free doesn't always mean legal when you're downloading music. And critics say the recording industry's muddying the waters its spent years in court trying to clear up."