[1433] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
RIAA Lawsuit
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeff Roberts)
Wed Jul 23 17:11:07 2003
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 17:06:50 -0400
From: Jeff Roberts <thejoker@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
Many of you have probably already seen this, but MIT's statement on this
issue is readily available:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/riaa.html
Since it's short, I'll copy it here.
---
MIT responds to RIAA subpoena
JULY 22, 2003
Contact
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Professor James Bruce, Vice President for Information
Systems at MIT, has issued the following statement:
"MIT recently received a subpoena from the Recording Industry Association
of America that was issued under the terms of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act. The subpoena requests the name and address of the
individual whose computer was, according to the RIAA, sending out
copyrighted songs on the Internet.
"A different federal law, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act,
prohibits colleges and universities from disclosing information about
students except in certain situations. One of the situations is when an
educational institution is served with valid subpoenas. However, even when
valid subpoenas are served, the law requires the educational institution
to give students advance notice of the existence of the subpoenas, so that
they can take whatever action they may choose to try to protect their
information from disclosure.
"MIT of course has a policy of complying with lawfully issued subpoenas.
But in this case we have been advised by counsel that the subpoena was not
in compliance with the court rules that apply to these subpoenas, and did
not allow MIT time to send any notice as the law requires.
"We understand that there is an active national debate about the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act and the subpoenas that the RIAA is issuing under
it. By objecting to this particular subpoena,
"MIT is not taking any sides in that debate. But we are required by
federal law to disclose student information only if we have a valid
subpoena and have given the necessary advance notice.
"MIT filed a motion in the United States District Court for the District
of Massachusetts today on that point only, and has asked the Court to
advise MIT how to proceed."
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