![[Politech logo]](http://www.politechbot.com/image/logo.gif){kind=logo}
Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
The Chromatics song that triggered the RIAA's cease-and-desist letter: http://www.astrocappella.com/swift.shtml Listen to it here (it's really excellent -- I just ordered the AstroCappella CD): ftp://ftp.swift.psu.edu/pub/Swift/Documents/swift_song.mp3 -Declan --- http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1001095.html RIAA apologizes for threatening letter By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 12, 2003, 3:16 PM PT WASHINGTON--The Recording Industry Association of America apologized Monday to Penn State University for sending an incorrect legal notice of alleged Internet copyright violations. The notice and subsequent apology appears to be the first time a faulty incorrect notification has been made public. The incident also shows just how easily automated programs that search for copyrighted material can be fooled, as well how disruptive such notices can be on college campuses. Last Thursday, the RIAA sent a stiff copyright warning to Penn State's department of astronomy and astrophysics. Department officials at first were puzzled because the notification invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and alleged that an FTP site was unlawfully distributing songs by the musician Usher. The letter demanded that the department "remove the site" and delete the infringing sound files. But no such files existed on the server, which is used by faculty and graduate students to publish research and grant proposals. Matt Soccio, the department's system administrator, said that he searched the FTP server "for files ending in mp3, wma, ogg, wav, mov, mpg, etc., and found nothing that would precipitate this complaint." Except, that is, when Soccio realized two things. The department has on its faculty a professor emeritus named Peter Usher and the same FTP site hosted Usher's work on radio-selected quasars. The site also had a copy of an a capella song performed by astronomers about the Swift gamma ray satellite, which Penn State helped to design. The combination of the word "Usher" and the suffix "mp3" had triggered the RIAA's automated copyright crawlers. [...remainder snipped...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------