Even more hard-hitting than the RIAA's eagle-eyed monitoring of MP3 traders is the apparently ruthless punishments that ensue. The seriousness of the lawsuits was magnified with the highly publicized settlement between the RIAA and a 12-year-old New York City girl. Peer2Peer (P2P) United, which represents music-sharing programs and has hence served as a shield of sorts against the RIAA's Big Brother methodologies, placated its rival faction with a $2000 check in the case of the seventh grader, but representatives say that P2P can't be counted on to come to the financial rescue of the 250-odd defendants currently pending trial.
Fortunately, P2P's retreat doesn't mark the end of worry-free file-sharing, at least not for Amherst College students. Two students were cited specifically by the RIAA in a notification received by the College in early September. In an unexpectedly heroic move, the College followed in the footsteps of Boston College and MIT, refusing to monitor students' downloading habits, despite warning from the RIAA that the College network is host to illegal file-sharing.
Though precedent rules in favor of the College's decision should a lawsuit be brought, Amherst's administration will doubtless face more questions and issues regarding file-sharing in the following months.
Politics and protection rights aside, I personally applaud the College's decision to essentially side with us. Thus far in my career at Amherst, it seems as though the wants of the student body are consistently at odds with the aims of the administration. This year, the limitations posed by construction on a formerly guaranteed hot junior-year pick left most of my class and even more sophomores bitter at the plans for the future that comes at the cost of our college experience. A smaller, more specific glitch in convenience seems to plague the students on Sunday nights, when they inevitably flood my shift at Schwemm's, asking for quarters while the campus' sole change machine remains unstocked.
Note that policy forbids us from making change for students, and furthermore, that many laundry rooms cross-campus boast broken card slots, or, in the case of my hill house basement, none at all. In fact, the more one contemplates the current state of affairs, the more distressing it appears. Room change is virtually nonexistent for those twice or thrice struck by roomdraw misfortune. The spoils collected by the sophomore victors of the opt-out game far exceed the scant pickings of a percentage of the junior class. There's no freshman quad left to speak of, and now first-year residents of Pratt Dormitory may have to relocate to modular housing as well, as a result of an infectious mold allergy.
I don't pretend to partake in, or even understand the process that determines so many everyday fates around campus. What it comes down to is unfairness, both to myself and the student body, and a subsequent general trend of dissatisfaction with the administration. Student curiosity over dinner have found their way to the online forum, pleading to know what their formidable tuition money is going towards and pitting Amherst's current administrative shortcomings against the ease with which friends and family members at other private institutions do their laundry ("for free") and overcome distances between dorms ("a shuttle system!")
Enter the RIAA, and the College's intervention, a light, not at the end, but certainly at a reassuring point of a tunnel poorly paved with temporary housing alternatives, embezzlement and the black-and-white sting of the recently released school rankings.
Whatever the reason may have been for the College's refusal to facilitate the monitoring process of the RIAA, the act itself assuaged some concerns on my part: that the school is looking out for the welfare of its students, even in this "transitional" time, and that we, unlike the change and laundry machines, haven't been completely forgotten. It's a nice feeling, and one that comes at a much-needed time.