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The University of Maine was drawn into the Recording Industry Association of America’s hunt for music downloaders yesterday, as 14 students on campus face litigation from the group.
The students are among 27 in the university system implicated by the RIAA in a letter sent to the UMS yesterday.
According to the RIAA, they only have Internet Protocol addresses that link the offending downloaders to UMS campuses. They’re asking the university system to identify the students and to send them RIAA-penned letters offering them settlements to avoid costly litigation.
According to reports at other universities, the settlement payments can be as high as $4,500, although if the cases goes to civil court punitive damages have been known to reach $150,000.
There will be a meeting today to decide how to respond to the situation. “We are reviewing the content of the letters with UMS legal counsel to determine how to handle the letters,” said John Gregory, executive director of Information Technologies at UMaine. He said IT is reviewing logs to verify the identities of the students implicated. No identities have been released yet.
Since the end of February, the RIAA has increased its campaign to fight music piracy on college campuses.
“That’s where there’s a disproportionate share of the problem and that’s an important audience for us,” Jonathan Lamy, communications director for the RIAA, said of college students. “[Students] no longer buy music like they used to. We’re trying to send the right message and encourage them to enjoy music legally.”
The campaign has drawn resistance from other universities. Citing the RIAA’s legal savings in the new settlement program, the University of Wisconsin has refused to forward letters with pre-litigation settlement offers to students on its campus. “We are not the legal agent for the recording agency, nor do we aspire to [be],” Brian Rust, communications manager for the UW Division of Information Technology, was quoted as saying in UW’s student newspaper, the Badger Herald.
The UMS is expected to decide later in the week whether it will follow UW or send out the settlement letters.
In addition to the university system, 378 more students from 22 other colleges and universities nationwide were also implicated yesterday. The RIAA sent out another 400 letters at the end of February.
According to Lamy, none of the money collected in settlements or lawsuits goes to recording companies or artists represented by the RIAA. “This is not a money-making exercise at all. We lose money,” Lamy said. “It’s a costly program and any reimbursements do not come close to either recouping the loss to the industry or the expense of the program.”
In the past, UMaine has received cease-and-desist letters from the RIAA and other outside agencies. Gregory said when this happens, IT tells students to clear their computers of illegal copyrighted works. “File sharing of copyrighted material is a violation of the UMaine Electronic Communications Policy,” Gregory said.
In addition to a monthly wave of letters to universities, the RIAA sends similar letters to commercial Internet service providers each week.
