Although three college students were sued recently for “swapping” music, the threat of being sued does not faze local students.
According to sophomore Ryan Anderson, “I only download music, I don’t upload. I’m not worried at all.” Other students generally shared Anderson’s viewpoints.
On April 3 the Recording Industry Association of America sued four students personally for $98 billion for swapping music.
Joe Nievelt, at Michigan Tech, Daniel Ping, at Princeton, and Jesse Jordan and Aaron Sherman at Renseelaer Polytechnic Institute were each accused of creating illegal networks that distributed copyrighted material.
The RIAA initially demanded $15,000 per song downloaded by ed FlatLan, the file-sharing network Nievelt ran in his dorm room, a haven for trading copyrighted songs.
“This is kind of a ridiculously big lawsuit,” said Nievelt. “I really don’t have that kind of money.” Neither do any of the other students. Ping and Nievelt each agreed to pay the RIAA $15,000. Jordan agreed to pay $12,000 and fellow student Sherman agreed to pay $17,500.
The system the students set up was a local area network, which allowed students to download thousands of copyrighted songs. Cary Sherman, RIAA president, said they are trying to show students that this is illegal and there are real consequences.
The effect has already been seen. Since the lawsuit, at least 18 other similar networks at universities have gone offline.
On April 28 Vice Chancellor John D. Coombe sent out an e-mail to students stating that the University of Denver prohibits the use of its networks and systems for the purposes of committing violations of law, including the copyrighted laws of the United States. The letter also recommended that if students had file-sharing software, such as Kazza, they should consider removing it. If students do not remove the program they are warned in the letter not to use the program on the university’s network, and to make sure that the file sharing option is disabled.
Up to this point the RIAA has only gone after students distributing copyrighted material not downloading it. As long as the program is disabled from sending files there should be no problems.
“I deleted Kazza,” said sophomore Tony Wright. “Not because I thought it was wrong, but because I didn’t want DU to get in trouble.” It appears that, despite the record industry’s aggressive actions and the school’s letter of warning, most students are going to continue downloading music.
