RIAA Subpoenas

What does it mean when the RIAA sends subpoenas to a University?

Here's a rundown from www.p2pnet.net.

"That a subpoena has been sent out doesn’t mean the person on the receiving end will act on it and indeed, increasing numbers of academics in the US are protesting as the labels continue to seriously disrupt classes and lessons by firing these documents at students, and by coercing school staffs into passing on the extortionate ’settlement’ letters to those whom they’re supposed to be teaching, not intimidating."

"Because the RIAA does not know the names behind the IP addresses, the letters ask the universities to deliver the notices to the proper students, rather than relying upon the ordinary legal mechanisms," says Charles Nessor, William F. Weld professor of law, Harvard Law School.

As p2pnet also reports, "By itself an IP number on a packet has only suggestive value and is not reliable evidence at all," says University of Chicago professor Mike O’Donnell.