RIAA guidelines target students for music downloads

Juliana Kiyan Senior Editor

Since 2003, colleges across the nation have been under pressure from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to crack down on students who use their network connection to illegally download music. During the past year, however, the RIAA has taken a more aggressive stance by targeting individuals who may share as few as four to five songs, along with those who make a large volume of copyright protected music available on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks. In light of the recording industry’s new tactics, Vassar is taking steps to educate and warn students about the risks of engaging in P2P file sharing.

Two weeks ago, Vice President for Computing and Information Services (CIS) Bret Ingerman e-mailed Vassar students about the RIAA’s heightened pursuit of individuals illegally file-sharing.

Ingerman’s e-mail came two months after the RIAA launched a new initiative to deter students from illegal file sharing on college campuses. According to a Feb. 28 RIAA press release, the industry sends notices to colleges at a rate of more than three times that of the previous academic year.

As part of the RIAA’s “campus anti-piracy initiative,” 13 universities received 400 pre-litigation settlement letters from the RIAA in late February. The letter notifies the school of an impending lawsuit against a student whom the organization believes has illegally downloaded music. The student is then directed to an RIAA-operated Web site, www.p2plawsuits.com, and can settle his or her case online “at a discounted rate.” The student could pay from hundreds to thousands of dollars per song downloaded illegally. If the student chooses not to settle within 60 days, he or she can face a court date and immense legal fines. The RIAA has sent out over 1,200 letters since late February.

The RIAA requests that university administrators forward the letter to the accused network user, but some schools have refused to comply. A University of Wisconsin representative justified his school’s position on the letters, saying, “We just do not want the RIAA to use the university instead of the legal process.”

In addition, copyright holders have recently used subpoenas to obtain the names of individuals sharing copyrighted information. If Vassar receives such a subpoena, the College is legally required to release the student’s name.

In P2P file sharing, digital files available for other users to download over the Internet are stored on personal computers. Limewire and Kazaa are two of the most popular file-sharing networks available. According to NDP Group, P2P Internet services saw five billion downloads last year. In comparison, 509 million songs were downloaded from digital music services such as iTunes.

The RIAA identifies an individual who is illegally uploading digital files and making them available on line by his or her computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address. The College is initially contacted when the RIAA discovers that a student is illegally downloading files on the campus network.

Vassar has received complaints from the RIAA and similar organizations concerning individuals using the College network who may be violating copyright laws.

Dean of Students David Brown estimated that the College has met with maybe 10 to 15 students per year about these complaints for the past three to four years. Ingerman referred to these complaints as the most “innocuous” to come from the RIAA.

In these cases, Vassar must follow the procedures outlined in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. When the College receives official notice from a copyright holder or a designee, Brown said the College will first temporarily disconnect the student from the Internet. The student will then meet with Brown and representatives from CIS, who will explain the termination of Internet service and give the student a minimal number of sanctioned service hours. When the student agrees to stop illegally downloading files and removes the file sharing software, the College sends a letter to the RIAA stating the problem has been resolved. He said that students have generally been compliant in this process.

Brown noted that only the IP address is referenced in communication with the copyright holder, not the student’s name. “To date, that’s satisfied them and they feel like it’s taken care of, and we’ve protected the student’s identity,” he said.

According to Ingerman, no student at Vassar has received a pre-litigation notice or subpoena to date. If the College were to receive a notice, it would be inclined to forward the notice to the accused student, who would independently choose whether to settle the case online. The College would be legally obligated to comply with a subpoena. Philipose Mulugeta ’07, a member of the Committee on Computing and Educational Technologies, said that CIS is considering a fee for matching the IP address to the student, because the process takes time.

Both of these measures reflect the College’s situation as a middleman. While Vassar keeps the amount of personal information that reaches the RIAA and other organizations to a minimum, Brown said, “We’re not in the position of protecting [students] from the consequences of that behavior, except in these cases that they’re coming through us.”

In an April 15 letter to The Harvard Crimson, President of the RIAA and graduate of the Harvard Law School Cary Sherman wrote that university administrators should police the university network for illegal student activity. “It’s the role of the university as an educational leader that is paramount. Teaching students that it’s not okay to steal someone else’s creative work is an important message to convey. Doing so requires more than boilerplate warnings not to infringe.”

The RIAA’s initiative adds another facet to a broader discussion about file sharing and the future of the music industry. Contingents of the industry have demonstrated conflicting views about how to best keep up with consumer trends, in light of the growing popularity of digital format. According to Nielsen SoundScan data, CD sales are down more than 20 percent since the start of the year.

Associate Professor of Sociology Leonard Nevarez, who teaches a seminar course entitled “Corporate Power,” discussed how the development of music in a digital format has had different impacts on both the young consumer and the leaders of the recording industry.

“I think that the music industry is really struggling to come to terms with the fact that particularly new young consumers of music want to share it,” said Nevarez. “They don’t see it as shoplifting; they see it as a way to celebrate its coolness with others, and artists and music industry people are trying to figure out how to make money off that as well as make a living.”

Some companies have taken measures to adjust to the P2P generation. On April 2, EMI Group, a British music corporation, announced a deal to sell songs online through Apple’s music service without copy protection. Consumers who buy the unprotected music are not restricted to playing it on the iPod and can create and burn unlimited playlists.

As news of pre-litigation notices arriving at colleges across the country has put numerous students on edge, Nevarez said that the RIAA may be hurting its goal of deterring illegal music downloads rather than working toward it. “The record industry’s lawyers can only go after so many to make visible examples of some people, and I think a lot of people in the recording industry know that they may be doing as much harm as good,” he said. “They may be alienating a whole new generation of consumers from trusting in the music industry. There’s a big culture generational gap between record executives who see this as shoplifting and new consumers who just don’t view it that sense at all.”

Brown offered this advice for students: “The risks here are very high and I’m hoping that students won’t [illegally download] because it’s not worth it. I’m hoping that there’s a deterrent and I hope the deterrent isn’t just these particular letters, but that the risks are very high. Once a student graduates they going to be just as prey to these things in the real world.”