Mar
18
Stanford Copyright Fake-Out
Posted by Irene Soto at 10:34 am under Copyright.
Stanford students reading last week’s Stanford Chaparral magazine were shocked to learn that the University had reported thousands of students for illegally downloading music. According to the report, 78 unnamed students had already been reported for violations and approximately 34 percent of Stanford’s undergraduate population were in danger of facing up to $9,250 per song in damages.
24,000 terrified students checked the accompanying website (http://riaa.stanford.edu) to see if the RIAA was after them. The article provided contact information for the University’s legal counseling office.
So why haven’t we heard more about this? It was a joke.
The article is part of a century-long tradition of the Chaparral to publish a fake edition of the Stanford Daily on the Monday of the week preceding winter quarter exams, while the actual Daily limits its production to only one paper on Wednesday.
The following day the website read: “This page is part of the Stanford Chaparral’s 2008 ‘Fake Daily.’ We hope you all had a good time thinking you were totally sued.” A good time, I’m sure.
The site also notes: ”I’ve been asked to point out that the article ‘Slime mold consumes biology department!’ on page 6 was also a prank, so biologists, it’s now safe to continue solving cancer.”