Students demand i2hub operator pay their RIAA claims

DamnedIfIknow used our news submit to tell us "Could this be the start of a trend? Kazaa made me do it, so they should pay." It seems that the recent lawsuit that addressed a file sharing network on the ultra fast Internet2 network is stirring up some interesting legal arguments.

Students are demanding that the operator behind the now-defunct i2hub online file-sharing network pay to settle copyright infringement claims against them by the recording industry. Founded by Wayne Chang in 2003 while he was a student at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the i2hub network linked students and others over the super-fast Internet2 network. In a letter to Chang dated Monday, attorneys with the Student Legal Services Office claimed i2hub placed ads on campus to deceive UMass students into believing the software was approved by the university.

The Student Legal Service has claimed that if the students had known that they were exposing themselves to legal action, they would not have used the hub software. Mr. Chang has been offered a settlement by the Student Legal Service, all he has to do is pay all 42 students fines...about 157,000 dollars. Chang argues that in the software end user license agreement or EULA it includes warnings about potential liability from using it to swap copyrighted content. Chang says that if they hold his feet to the fire on this issue and he loses, then EULA are useless and have no meaning.

Source: Boston.com