By Mike Cook
The Recording Industry Association of America is stepping up legal action against college resident students who download copyrighted music illegally. But, to save money, the association is seeking to settle rather than go through a costly lawsuit.
In the past, the RIAA has individually sued students, however this practice is often time consuming as well as costly to the RIAA. The RIAA files civil lawsuits for copyright infringement in federal court. Such infringement can cost $750 to $150,000 per work infringed.
Instead, the RIAA has begun using “pre-litigation” letters. Last week under the new RIAA program, about 400 pre-litigation letters were sent to 13 University’s across the country, with Ohio State receiving 50 pre-litigation letters alone. In coming weeks the RIAA seeks to produce about 400 pre-litigation letters per month.
Under this new approach, the RIAA will request that universities forward the pre-litigation letters to the appropriate network user, and he or she can settle the record company claims at a discounted settlement. Such a settlement will also prevent anything appearing on a public record. The settlements will also require that the student does not engage in any future illegal downloading.
Legal action will persist, however, if the student does not agree to settlement. As Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA, said, “If the student fails to contact us to arrange a settlement within 20 days, a full lawsuit will follow.”
Sherman said the increase in legal action is the answer to complaints by defendants who wished they had the option to settle before a lawsuit was filed, as well as a way to make students realize that what they are doing is truly illegal and hurting the industry.
“[Illegal downloading], in turn, compromises our ability to invest in new music. Many of you probably have a favorite local band on your campus. If music theft is allowed to continue at such unacceptably high levels, the chances of those bands getting signed to a record label deal will continue to diminish.”
Free music services, such as Ruckus, have attempted to give students an alternative to illegal downloading, however they are not the perfect answer, said senior film student Abby Clark.
“I think it’s because people want to own their music, streaming music isn’t enough. They want to listen to music on their iPod, or in their car, and right now you just can’t do that for free–unless you illegally download.”
In the past, Sherman said the RIAA effort to address piracy on campus has always been through education, enforcement, promotion of legal alternatives and technical measures to inhibit illegal file-trafficking. However, she said the new program focuses more on the enforcement.
“Frankly, we’ve found that students know that downloading from unauthorized peer-to-peer systems is illegal, but the chance of getting caught isn’t great enough to discourage them from doing it. By increasing the number of lawsuits, we’re letting them know that the risk of getting caught is greater.”