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On a late afternoon, Susanne had a hankering to hear “Forgot About Dre,” the Dr. Dre track from his album, “2001.” Like millions of college students, Susanne was accustomed to the on-demand access to music afforded by applications like LimeWire. Without a second thought, she downloaded the track, along with nine others, to her shared file folder. That’s when her mp3 files turned into a lengthy and costly legal ordeal: Representatives from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) were searching LimeWire for the same track.
According to the lawsuit filed against Susanne – whose name has been changed in this story out of fear of legal ramifications – they found it.
“My Internet got shut off, so I had to meet with IT,” Susanne explained. The IT Department at the University of Maine does not monitor the network for file sharing, but responds to complaints by copyright holders like the RIAA, a trade group representing hundreds of record labels across the United States. In August, the RIAA asked the University of Maine for information on the individual addresses it had caught in the act of downloading unauthorized files as part of a sweep of 58 campuses across the country. The action netted 34 students from the University of Maine System.
Representatives for the RIAA could not be reached for comment, but Steven Marks, RIAA executive vice president, issued a press release after this particular campaign.
“The good news is that students represent some of music’s biggest fans,” Marks said. “Unfortunately, they too often turn to illegal sites for their music. The enormous damage compounded with every illegal download is alarming – thousands of regular, working-class musicians and others out of work, stores shuttered, new bands never signed.”
UMaine, like many colleges across the United States, declined to supply the RIAA with the personal identification of IP addresses. The University does have its own Electronic Communications Policy, and repeated complaints against a user are grounds for removal from the campus network. However, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the University is under no obligation to provide or track the actions of individual users on its network.
“IP addresses are just meaningless digits like 130.11.212.17,” Jon Ippolito, a University of Maine New Media professor whose research involves intellectual property. He stressed that while IT Departments can track those numbers to individuals, the connection could be tenuous, as the numbers change periodically and “third parties sometimes download off a student’s wireless router.”
This did not stop the lawsuits. The RIAA uses a tactic known as the John Doe lawsuit, filing a batch of complaints in court demanding to know the names of people who have violated their copyright. From this point on, the University was under a legal obligation to hand over the names connected to the IP addresses. That’s when the RIAA’s lawyers got in touch with Susanne.
“Two months later, I got a letter telling me I had to pick up another letter at the post office,” Susanne said. It was from the individual record companies that owned the copyrights on the downloaded songs. “I picked up this giant package that said I was being sued. It said each song was worth $750 to $30,000 a song, and if I had willingly distributed it, it was up to $150,000.”
These prices were set by the Copyright Act of 1976, which established a maximum fine on piracy of copyrighted materials to $150,000 per intentional offense. For Susanne, that could have added up. The nine songs she was sharing would have meant between $760,000 and $1.35 million. For Susanne – and most college students – this wasn’t an option. So she decided to settle.
“I could have settled for bankruptcy or borrowed the money from my parents,” Susanne said. “Bankruptcy would have set me way back.” While taking a month to weigh her options, she found that the cost of settling the case had gone up.
Initially, she could have settled it for $3,000, but no one told her that. She found the cost of settling was going up every month. A recent letter explained that if the matter were not settled in 20 days, she would face an additional $650 in fines.
“I don’t even understand half of this stuff they’re sending me,” Susanne said. She and her family have not hired a lawyer on the matter because of the expense.
A letter sent to Susanne by lawyers representing six record companies did not list the costs if the case went to court or the cost of a settlement. Instead, it directed Susanne to a hotline that had been set up to facilitate settlements. Settlement offers sent out by the RIAA are rarely court documents. Instead, they are a proposed agreement between identified file sharers and record companies – or the RIAA – similar to the contracts signed in a lease.
After two months passed, in which Susanne contemplated declaring bankruptcy or paying the settlement, she was served a complaint and summons. If she went to court and lost, Susanne could be held accountable for all damages, including court fees, the cost of a lawyer and possibly the cost to the RIAA.
“It’s easy to picture the Recording Industry Association of America as a sort of ‘music police,’ and their recent efforts to shut down peer-to-peer networks as a form of law enforcement,” Ippolito said. “But the RIAA’s efforts range far beyond the law into subtle and not-so-subtle forms of coercion… these tactics make the RIAA less like the police than the mafia.”
Ippolito also expressed his concern that students are often ill-informed about their rights. He pointed out articles printed in The Maine Campus that had incorrect or misleading information. For example, it had been reported that IT had a legal obligation to hand over names attached to IP addressed-it does not until they are subpoenaed by a court.
For her part, Susanne said she regrets the decision to download music, and won’t be repeating the offense. “I wish I had known it would be such a big deal,” Susanne said. “I hope other people will use this as an example. No one should have to go through this, especially in college. You have enough on your plate in college.”
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