As mentioned on Slashdot, the Technician Online has a story about a number of lawsuits filed by the RIAA against NCSU to obtain the names of several people accused of downloading music illegally. There is also an opinion piece posted on the same topic. Now, there are a lot of other issues at work here, but I am glad to see that North Carolina State is taking this stance.

I am not a big fan of the RIAA, but I don’t think that people should pick a legal stance simply to be in opposition of the RIAA, which seems to be the primary reason that most posters on Slashdot like it. I really like NCSU’s stance simply from the standpoint that they are protecting the privacy of their students. If NCSU were simply and ISP taking this stance to protect it’s customer’s that would be even better. It’s common to see ISPs and telephone companies cave and simply provide internet usage and phone records without requiring a court order because they don’t really lose anything tangible by providing those records. Mostly, the damage that could occur is the invasion of privacy of their customers, which doesn’t directly hurt an ISP.