New round of RIAA settlements, aimed at college campuses

A recording industry group that has been offering settlements to college students suspected of sharing music online says more than a quarter of the alleged music pirates have accepted the offer."

The offer by the RIAA is a pre-litigation settlement, meaning that no subpoenas have been issued, and no lawsuit filed. The settlements typically are $750 per song allegedly downloaded by the student. A website was provided with the letter that was sent to the students, allowing them to pay their settlements online with a credit card. The average settlements ranged from $3000-$5000. 405 students from 23 different college campuses were issued letters, and the RIAA itself reported that 116 took the settlement. That leaves 71% of those issued that did not take the settlement. That being said the RIAA still believes their campaign has been a success so far. More letters can be expected next month.

"A student who received a pre-litigation letter told Ars that he refused to engage their offer because they offer zero proof of what is alleged. "It's like receiving blackmail. 'We know what you did, pay us' is the message, but they don't really know me or what I have done," he wrote. The student wishes to remain anonymous.

He knows that students who ignore the pre-litigation letters are just asking the RIAA to pursue them more, but he hopes that when the RIAA is actually faced with having to produce evidence that they'll simply come up short. The current approach by the RIAA is to simply tell students that each song shared is a $750 violation, so one's fine is often calculated based on the number of songs the RIAA says that they've shared. Yet the RIAA offers no proof of their claims, while sometimes trying to make students feel like they're getting a deal.

(By: Ken Fisher from Ars Technica)

The RIAA is trying to scare college students into paying a fine while they do not provide any evidence of any violation. They mentioned as well that if they were to pay up no record of the lawsuit would appear on the students records in the future. It is astounding that as many as 116 people would admit to copyright infringement without any evidence that has been proven reasonable in a court of them doing so. As mentioned in Ken Fisher's article, the RIAA could 'come up short' and not be able to prove anything.

With over 60 million estimated users of peer-to-peer software in the United States, firing random lawsuits at the public does not seem to have a deterrent affect. By suing college students I believe that they feel they cannot lose because more then half of college students admit to using such software, and also they have a lot at stake. No one wants to have the burden of a lawsuit on their record when applying for jobs fresh out of college. The RIAA knows this, and is taking advantage of it.


Also I would like to comment on the wording used by the RIAA in their own report of the settlements.

"Continuing its efforts to address the extensive music theft that persists on college campuses, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of the major record companies, today sent a second wave of 405 pre-litigation settlement letters to 23 universities."

(Taken from http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/032107.asp)

The RIAA continues to use the word theft in their reports. Theft entails that someones property has been taken from them. Theft is also a criminal offense. The issue here is copyright infringement, which does not involve property being taken but copied. Copyright infringement is also not a crime in America, it is a matter for the civil court system.