THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008
NEWS
5A
DOWNLOADS (CONTINUED FROM 4A)
decision whether to forward the RIAA's letters was a complicated one for universities, and she didn't want to endorse any one decision. She said she understood the University's argument that it wasn't its role to help the RIAA identify lawsuit targets, but she said the decision could have difficult consequences.
"It would be really hard, then, when a parent calls and they say, 'Why didn't you tell us?' Mitrano said.
She said a university would do well to include students or student government in the decision whether to forward the letters, giving students all the information and asking them what would be best for them.
"We're a small firm sitting here helping some students and the plaintiffs are pretty well-organized. This is a nationwide thing."
"There is an administrative burden for the institution," Mitrano said, "but it's really the student that faces the music."
FIGHTING BACK
They may not have gotten to help decide the University's policy, but at least two of the 13 "John Does" have decided to fight the powerful record companies, at least for now.
John Does No. 6 and 11 went to Lawrence attorney Karan Thadani after they found out about their lawsuits. Thadani went back to his law office and discussed with the other two attorneys there - his fiancée, Joni Johnson, and her father, John C. Johnson - whether to represent the two nervous college students being sued by a multibillion-dollar industry.
They decided to go for it.
John Johnson started the law office two years ago when he moved to Lawrence from the small central Kansas town of Hillsboro, where hed run a solo law practice for 33 years. He started the office with his daughter, and Thadani joined in September 2007.
"We're lawyers," Thadani said.
"We decided to help them."
JOHN C. JOHNSON Lawrence attorney
Opposing Thadani, who's handling the case for the Johnson office, is Kansas City-based law firm Lathrop & Gage on the RIAA's side. Claiming to be the oldest law firm west of the Mississippi
River, Lathrop & Gage has 10 offices spanning the country and employs nearly 300 attorneys.
organized" John Johnson said.
"This is a nationwide thing."
Thadani said he knew that the RIAA had, with a few exceptions, gotten the settlements it wanted out of its previous copyright infringement lawsuits. Johnson said he and Thadani would not be intimidated by the power of their opposition.
Thadani and Johnson first asked the judge to throw out the subpoenaes served on the University so that the record companies couldn't get the students' names. The motion to quash the subpoenas was denied.
Johnson said their next move would depend on the RIAA's next move. He guessed that the record companies would sue or offer settlements to each student after they obtained the students' information.
Liz Kennedy, the RIAA spokeswoman, said she did not know when the RIAA would proceed with the lawsuits against the students who hadn't settled.
Raymond Schrull
University of Texas, said the RIAA usually raised its settlement offer to about $5,000 after it got the students' information and began individual lawsuits.
Raymond Schiflett, attorney at the
Johnson called the record companies' lawsuit campaign "greedy." He said the companies were using the lawsuits to meet business goals, rather than to correct injustices against them as lawsuits are traditionally meant to do.
"I think they're using the judicial system as a sledgehammer," Johnson said, "and I don't think that's right."
Ray Beckerman, a New York City attorney who operates the blog "Recording Industry vs. The People," called the record companies' practice of filing copyright infringement lawsuits an "extortion ring."
"The cases are based on fabricated evidence, they're based on invented theories of law, and they're brought by giant multinational corporations for no reason but to oppress decent, hardworking people," Beckerman said.
For example, Beckerman pointed to the record companies' meth-
ed to the record od of obtaining subpoenaes for students' information ex parte
- meaning that the judge orders the subpoenas without giving the defendants representation or notification.
The record companies argue that the
One KU economist challenges the record industry's claim that its sinking revenues are due to increased file-sharing. Koleman Strumpf, Koch professor of economics, researched the effect of illegal downloads on the music industry for a study released in a peer-reviewed journal last year.
He and his co-researcher concluded that downloads had little to no effect on album sales. The study compared sales and illegal downloads of top-selling albums.
"We think file-sharing is largely about people getting access to music that they never would have bought to begin with," Strumpf said. He guessed that the record industry's revenues have fallen because consumers view DVDs as a better value or because the iTunes store allows customers to buy individual songs instead of full albums.
subpoenas must be ordered quickly because universities may delete the records that allow them to identify the students being sued.
However, Kennedy, the RIAA spokeswoman, said file-sharing did take a bite out of profits and jobs. She cited a 2007 study by the Institute for Policy Innovation, a research group, that said music piracy caused the U.S. economy
"It's sort of shocking, because I kind of feel like they would rather protect the University as whole than their students individually."
Two judges have denied the RIAA's request for quick discovery of identities, and the RIAA has lost a few of its infringement cases, including one in Oklahoma in 2006.
LACEY FISHER Garden City junior
to lose 71,000 jobs and U.S. workers to lose $2.7 billion in wages each year.
making examples out of a small number of college students still seemed unfair.
"I just don't appreciate the RIAA taking money from us poor kids," she said.
Lacey Fisher said she understood that what she did was illegal, but she said the record companies' tactic of
John Doe No. 10 agreed the punishment was excessive.
"I think I deserved to get in trouble for it. I don't know if getting charged $4,000 is exactly justice' he said
how'd they get caught?
The RIAA does not publicly discuss its methods of catching illegal file-sharers. But in court documents, the RIAA says it uses a third-party investigator that often just downloads songs shared by others on file-sharing networks, then checks to see if the song is copyrighted.
Laura Diaz Moore, an attorney at Legal Services for Students, said many students don't know how to stop sharing music on software like
LimeWire. She said other students try to uninstall LimeWire but don't know how to completely erase the program from their computers.
KANSAN.COM
Go to Kansan.com for links to instructions on how to stop sharing music on LimeWire and how to completely uninstall LimeWire and other file-sharing programs.
This is not the first time KU students have had to answer to the RIAA's legal threats. Charli Johnson, a former KU student who transferred to Emporia State, got a letter from a law firm at her off-campus apartment in Summer 2004. She wondered if her father, a lawyer, may have gotten her an internship. Instead, the letter told her that the record industry was about to sue her for copyright infringement.
Johnson discussed her options with her father, but she said she was intimidated by the impressive evidence the RIAA presented, including a list of all 592 songs she had been sharing.
"It's kind of creepy," she said.
Convinced she couldn't win in court, she settled for about $3,000 (she made a legal agreement not to reveal the exact amount). Johnson, now a teacher in Arkansas City, took out a loan to pay the bill.
'A SLAP IN THE FACE'
Justified or not, the record companies have collected $3,000 from Johnson and $4,000 from Lacey Fisher, John Doe No. 10 and five other KU students. Six others will
probably pay up, too, judging from the RIAA track record.
Fisher and Doe No. 10 got money from their parents to pay their settlements, and now they each owe their parents $4,000.
Fisher will use the money from her summer job, at a lake resort in Utah, to pay her parents back. She said she should make just about $4,000.
She said her parents consoled her by telling her that most people had some kind of trying experience growing up, and paying $4,000 to some record companies might not be as bad as getting a DUI or something worse.
Doe No. 10 said he agreed to give his parents half his income until his debt was paid off, starting with whatever job he finds this summer.
As stressful and costly as his experience was, he admitted one thing: The record company's strategy works. He'll never download illegally again.
"I already knew it was wrong when I was doing it," he said, "but I guess I kind of needed a slap in the face to stop."
STATE
— Edited by Patrick De Oliveira
Casinos could generate $180 million for Kansas
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOPEKA — Four state-owned resort casinos and slot machines at race tracks could generate up to $739 million in annual revenue even if two Indian casinos operate near the border in Oklahoma, a study prepared for the Kansas Lottery concluded.
The estimate assumes the Quapaw casino will operate south of Cherokee County and the Pawnee tribe will have a casino south of Arkansas City. Without the two casinos, the study said annual revenues could reach $811 million.
With the two Oklahoma casinos, Kansas' share of gambling proceeds could amount to $180 million a year, and $196 million without them. Both casinos are being built.
Supporters of expanded gambling estimated last year that the state would realize $200 million in additional annual revenue.
A law enacted last year allows casinos in Wyandotte, Cherokee, Sumner and Ford counties and slot machines at the Woodlands dog and horse racing park in Kansas City and Camptown Greyhound Park in Frontenac. The state owns the gambling and the casinos will be operated by developers under contracts with the Lottery.
Keith Kocher, the Lottery's director of gaming, said Tuesday that the study based its conclusions on certain assumptions, including that all casinos will be operating two years after the slots at the tracks start — something Kocher doesn't expect to happen.
The state will receive at least 22 percent of gross revenues from casinos and 40 percent from slots at the tracks. The study estimates $98 million in track revenues each year.
"When you don't know how long it will take the casinos to be built, you have to make some assumptions, like the casinos will come on line two years after the
tracks," he said.
As for whether the study's estimates are too high or too low, Kocher said, "You hear it both ways, depending on who you're talking to."
It also assumes slot revenues at the tracks will decrease after the casinos open.
He said the contracts could be negotiated to include a higher percentage for the state.
"It is our intent and desire to obtain as much for the state of Kansas that we can," Kocher said. "We expect there will be higher offers than 22 percent."
Eleven other states have commercial casinos, but Kansas is the only one with state-owned operations.
The law requires that developers in all but Ford County make a minimum investment of $225 million. The minimum investment for Ford County is $50 million because it's a smaller market.
It says that with the Oklahoma casinos, a Mulvane casino could produce $209 million in gross revenues each year and the Wellington location would produce $156 million. The figures without the Oklahoma casinos are $214 million at Mulvane and $167 million at Wellington.
Two-year-old Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his family's home in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Bagdad, Iraq on Tuesday. The child, who later died in hospital, was in one of four homes allegedly destroyed by U.S. missiles. More than two dozen people were killed when Shiite militants ambushed a U.S. patrol in Bagdad the embattled Sadr City district, bringing the death toll in area on Tuesday to more than 30, a U.S. military spokesman and Iraqi officials said.
The study by Christiansen Capital Advisors notes that the difference in gross revenue with or without the Oklahoma competition varies depending on whether the Sumner County casino is located near Mulvane or Wellington.
Doug Lawrence, a lobbyist who played a leading role in putting together gambling legislation over the past decade, said that the study was extremely conservative in its estimates. He said the study overestimated the impact of the two Oklahoma casinos.
IRAQ
"They assume the Oklahoma casinos offer a competitive product, and the reality is they don't. There is no roulette table or dice at the Indian casinos," said Lawrence, who lobbies for Marvel Gaming, which is competing for a Wellington location.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The study estimates Cherokee County would gross $161.6 million without the Quapaw casino and $93.9 million with it.
Dozens of civilians killed in clash
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD — Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad's main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat.
U. S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia.
The U.S. military said 28 militiamen were killed as the U.S. patrol pulled back. Local hospital officials said dozens of civilians were killed or wounded.
Such street battles — in tight confines and amid frightened civilians — are increasingly becoming a hallmark of the drive into Sadr City and recall the type of head-on clashes last seen in large numbers during last year's U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad and surrounding areas.
U. S. troops often have fought intense gunbattles as they cleared neighborhoods in Baghdad and former Sunni insurgent havens such as Anbar and Diyala provinces. But roadside bombings and rocket or mortar volleys against bases have been the more frequent mode of attack in recent years.
Clashes have intensified in Sadr City since the Mahdi Army leader — the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — reiterated his threat of an all-out war against U.S.-led forces last week. U.S.
troops, meanwhile, find themselves increasingly drawn into the fight opened by the Iraqi government to cripple the power of Shiite militias.
"We are seeing larger groups of milli-
more of the brazen attacks in the daytime recently"
The ambush Tuesday came as a U.S. patrol of heavily armored Stryker vehicles and tanks moved along a road where the U.S. military is putting up a concrete barrier — which seeks to cut off the militants' movements and hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the U.S.-protected Green Zone.
The militia fighters struck with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns barrages fired from alleys and rooftops, the military
"We are seeing larger groups of militants actually aggressively attacking Iraqi and U.S. security forces."
STEVE STOVER
U.S. Lieutenant Colonel
tants actually aggressively attacking Iraqi and U.S. security forces," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman for American troops in Baghdad. "We've seen
said
As the troops pulled back, one vehicle was hit with two roadside bombs, Stover said. Six American soldiers were wounded.
Officials at two local
hospitals said about 25 people had died and several dozen were wounded — most civilians. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't
authorized to release the information.
Associated Press photos showed men pulling the dust-covered body of a 2-year-old boy, Ali Hussein, from the rubble of one building
U. S. officials said all precautions are taken to prevent civilian casualties, but blamed the militiamen for taking cover among their neighbors and families.
"The enemy continues to
wooden coffins.
"The enemy continues to show little regard for innocent civilians, as they fire their weapons from within houses, alleyways and rooftops upon our soldiers."
Also in Baghdad, a senior government official was killed in a roadside bombing in the north of the city.
ALLEN BATSCHELET
U.S. Colonel
Dhia Jodi Jaber, director gen-
show little regard for innocent civilians, as they fire their weapons from within houses, alleyways and rooftops upon our soldiers," said Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad.
AP Television News footage showed children running for cover behind blast walls amid gunshots. Men helped carry several blood-soaked injured people onto stretches to a local emergency hospital. Outside the hospital, the dead were placed inside plain
director general at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, was hit by a roadside bomb as he left his home, the ministry's spokesman Abdullah al-Lami said.
Separately, an Iraqi court
adjourned until May 20 the trial of Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's best-known lieutenants, and seven other defendants over charges of allegedly ordering the execution of dozens of merchants for profiteering half an hour after it started.
The judge postponed the trial, saying co-defendant Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's cousin who is known as "Chemical Ali," was too ill to attend.