The RIAA Will Die in 2008. . .

naveen_reloaded · 31-12-2007, 06:03 PM

I realize lots of folks have been predicting the imminent demise of the RIAA and the music industry since the inception of Napster and yet both are still here and still treating legitimate customers as criminals - or at least as potential criminals. Sure individuals have tried to fight the RIAA’s questionable lawsuits and SWAT like tactics but there has yet to be a smack down of any substance to put them in their place.

With the latest tactic by the RIAA to target universities, colleges and the students at these bastions of higher education they have tried everything from manipulating Congress into creating laws forcing educational institutions to play along with the RIAA or have funding cut to threatening wholesale lawsuits against students.

Well while Congress might be waffling on helping out the RIAA because after all they don’t want to endanger their own cash flow it maybe the students themselves that will be the harbingers of the end to the RIAA threats and possibly setting legal precedents along the way.

According to a post on p2pnet.net a small university legal clinic in Maine are taking up the fight in lawsuits being brought against fellow students. Under guidance from the clinic director and University of Maine associate professor Deirdre Smith law students Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki are representing the students being sued.

If successful this move by the legal clinic could pave the way for other university law students to fight back against these actions by the RIAA providing both protection for their students, a low cost method for the universities to get out from under the RIAA threats and provide the students with some real world heavy weight legal experience.

Now if you think that these law students might not be up to the legal shenanigans that can go on the real world this is what Ray Beckerman; the lawyer behind Recording Industry vs The People, said to p2pnet.net:

Quote:

An experienced practicing lawyer, I reviewed the brief prepared by student attorneys Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki, under professor Smith’s supervision, and these young people did a bang-up job in exposing the fact that the RIAA has no case,

If this succeeds and snowballs through other universities it could be some interesting times ahead.

http://www.winextra.com/2007/12/29/i...s-death-knell/