OSU thought it already turned over defendants' IDs to RIAA

The unfortunate combination of an attachment error and a week-long sickness by the school's attorney gave the appearance that the school was ignoring a court order, according to an admission made by a university official to BetaNews.

Multiple press and Internet sources reported throughout the week that Oklahoma State University has been attempting to stonewall the Recording Industry Association of America by refusing to turn over a list of students' names suspected of trading in unlicensed files. Those students are currently listed as anonymous "John Does" in a federal court trial brought forth by RIAA members.

This morning, the Associated Press reported that OSU did turn over those names, but other sources took the story to mean that OSU acquiesced following a threat of contempt of court.

Neither was the exact case, according to university officials.

In an interview with BetaNews, OSU communications director Gary Shutt disputed the earlier reports, and confirmed this morning's AP report that it had indeed turned students names over to the courts. But the truth behind that later story may be a little less fancy than blogs have made it out to sound.

The school had been threatened by US District Judge David Russell with contempt of court charges on Tuesday for its failure to turn over the subpoenaed data, Shutt said. But the school had actually attempted to comply with the order last month.

Names of OSU students were included in an e-mail attachment that for some reason was not transmitted with the court filings. The school's attorney, Marilyn Barringer-Thomson, was out sick for over a week and never realized that the court had not received the documents.

What followed was the court order asking for the school to respond as to why it should not be held in contempt, which Barringer-Thomson quickly sent over the names, thus settling the issue.

Shutt said that the school's position remains that it will follow the law, and will stay out of the middle of cases between its students and the RIAA.

"We provide various warnings to students and our campus about illegal downloading and have provided information to students about free legal downloads through Ruckus," he told BetaNews.

Additionally, steps have been taken to stop peer-to-peer transfers over wireless networks, and similar blocks will be placed on wired networks soon. Shutt said this will greatly reduce the availability of pirated material over OSU's networks.