RIAA will serve new subpoenas

In its ongoing campaign against the illegal sharing of copyrighted music, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has launched another salvo targeting Princeton students.

In recent days, the music industry association sent several "pre-subpoena" letters to Rita Saltz, the University's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) agent, identifying multiple students — as many as 12, by some counts — who have allegedly shared music files illegally.

The students targeted were apparently using a file-sharing program called i2hub, which runs off the private Internet2 network accessible only to 206 member colleges and affiliated institutions. That sets the case apart from previous RIAA actions, which have involved file-sharing programs such as KaZaa that are based on public networks.

RIAA president Cary Sherman spoke publicly late last year about the threat his organization faces from private networks like Internet2.

"Bad actors have begun to hijack [Internet2], threatening to turn a beneficial and promising technology into a tool for piracy," Sherman said in October 2004 before a House committee investigating file sharing on college campuses. "Already, P2P systems, such as i2hub, have been set up on Internet2, facilitating the abuse of advanced networking technology to illegally distribute copyrighted works for free."

The RIAA letters note that the forthcoming subpoenas require the University to turn over specific contact information for students in question. The students, who were notified of the pending subpoenas by Saltz, are required to "preserve the entire library of recordings made available for distribution as well as any recordings that were downloaded."

By Monday afternoon, students across the University were sending emails on several e-lists, warning each other of the RIAA subpoenas and pending lawsuits. The missives recommended that, in the wake of the RIAA action, students stop using their file-sharing programs.

In her own letter to students, Saltz referred to legal options available to students against whom the RIAA is taking action.

"Basically, in a situation such as this one, where a lawsuit will be filed against you, the Dean's Office can provide a list of some local attorneys," Saltz wrote. "The University itself would not be a party to the suit."

Saltz and University attorneys could not be reached for comment Monday night to confirm whether the University has been served with the subpoenas, though one student who received a notice said he has not been served.

There remains some confusion as to whether the students who were subpoenaed were using i2hub or a different private file-sharing network run locally and accessible only to Princeton students. That network is commonly referred to by students as "DC++," after the program they use to access it.

"It has to be i2hub because that's the only file program I'm using," said one student who received a notice from the RIAA. "That's why I left this on — because you had to be a university student [to use the network]."

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The restrictions on these networks poses questions about how the RIAA gained access, explained Powell Fraser '06, who researched private file-sharing networks when working for CNN in 2003. At the time, Fraser was covering the story of Dan Peng '05, who was sued by the RIAA in April 2003 for making music available from his computer.

"In order to gain access to a private network and view what is being shared, the RIAA must literally have a computer on the local network of whatever school or community the server is set to include," said Fraser, who is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian. "If the network in question was a Princeton-only network, then the RIAA would have needed a Princeton IP address to gain access."

Such private file-sharing networks, Fraser argued, "would evolve as the primary method for piracy if the major public hubs such as KaZaa or eDonkey were to become too risky."

Alex Halderman GS, a TA for seminar on information technology and the law who has been active in copyright issues, said he would not find it surprising if the RIAA accessed the network through someone at a university.

RIAA spokesperson Jenni Engebretsen declined to comment on the action taken against Princeton students. In his testimony before Congress, Sanders, the RIAA president, tasked school administrators with stopping piracy on private networks like Internet2 and DC++. He did not suggest that the RIAA would independently attempt to gain access to the networks.

A request for comment sent to managers of i2hub to determine how the RIAA might have obtained access to their network was not returned.

On Feb. 28, the RIAA sued 753 students at 11 colleges across the county for copyright infringement. The organization's press release announcing the suits specifically noted the use of "unauthorized peer-to-peer services such as KaZaa, eDonkey and Grokster" — all of which use public networks.

But in the past two weeks, at least one Harvard student and three University of Southern California students have received notices from the RIAA, The Harvard Crimson and The Daily Trojan reported. It remains unclear whether those students were using public or private file-sharing networks.

In an interview with the 'Prince,' the two students who run the Princeton DC++ network explained that their network should not permit RIAA access because it is restricted to Princeton's dormnet.

Though the network was still running during the interview, one student said, "Although we are providing a legal service for legal intentions, because it is a service, and we have no stake in it ourselves, in light of the recent subpoenas we will probably shut the hub down until further notice."

Minutes after the interview concluded, at 9:33 p.m. Monday, the DC++ network became inaccessible.

"If these subpoenas were filed for students on these private networks, such RIAA action represents a new tactic in the war on piracy," Fraser said. "[T]he industry is sending a clear message that they, like the pirates, can adapt to new technologies."