For the RIAA, suing students for downloading music is like shooting fish in a barrel. University ISPs offer an easy way to match an IP address to a relatively small group of people, and students -- while generally poor -- would probably pay a settlement in the thousands-of-dollars range, rather than expose themselves to potentially ruinous damage judgments and years of legal headaches.
Soon after the University of Maine started forwarding RIAA notices to students, those who received the notice began asking the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, which allows third-year legal students to practice law under faculty supervision, for help, and their wishes were granted. They'll be defended by legal students at their own university.
Lawyers will be getting rich from copyright feuds for decades to come, so legal students would do well to acquaint themselves with these types of cases. And, of course, the students targeted by the RIAA need access to cheap defense. We could see lots of other universities follow their lead.
U-of-M associate professor Deirdre Smith explained why it makes sense to have legal students defend RIAA lawsuit targets to P2Pnet, which first reportedthe news:
These cases may be a particularly good fit for law schoolclinical programs because student attorneys are generally younger thanmost practicing attorneys and likely to be more familiar with thetechnology involved with these cases. It is also beneficial for thestudent-defendants to be able to work with an advocate who is closer tothem in age; they can build a rapport and trust more easily thanperhaps with older attorneys. I would also add that our students areenthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a nationalscope and significance, as well as having the chance to help fellowstudents in a positive and important way.
In other respects, however, this case is no different from the hundredsof others we take each year in that our clients have a legal problembut cannot afford an attorney. Indeed, in this case, our clients faceeven greater potential financial liability than most of our otherclients.
Since the clients in these file-sharing cases are so young, they mayhave little or no understanding of the legal system or their rights,
and are usually overwhelmed by the prospect of being liable forstatutory damages. Therefore, they are particularly ill-prepared torepresent themselves.
For these reasons as well, we regarded this case as ideally serving ourdual mission of providing hand-on training for future attorneys whilealso providing much-needed representation to clients who wouldotherwise be unable to afford an attorney.
These students did a good job on their brief, according to what Ray Beckerman of Recording Industry vs. The People told P2Pnet.
"An experienced practicing lawyer, I reviewed the brief prepared bystudent attorneys Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki, under professorSmith’s supervision, and these young people did a bang-up job inexposing the fact that the RIAA has no case."
(p2pnet; thanks, john)
