College Times

Issue date: 3/8/07 Section: Music

Media Credit: Ryan A. Ruiz

The number 23.

No, this is not a review of the new Jim Carrey movie. That is the number of Arizona State University students or faculty members who will receive "pre-litigation settlement letters" from the Recording Industry Association of America.

On February 28, the Recording Industry Association of America announced a new policy to crack down on illegal music downloading on college campuses. The association sent 400 letters to 13 universities and asked that the universities forward the letters to the individual users. The letters will offer the recipients an opportunity to pay a discounted settlement amount in lieu of a potentially costly lawsuit.

And the RIAA has a warning to college students here in the Valley, and nationwide - this is only the beginning of a long-term effort to eradicate illegal downloading the only way that seems to be effective: by hitting you in the wallet.

Recipients of this first round of letters will have 20 days to decide whether or not to accept the settlement. The RIAA did
not disclose the settlement amount. In a March 1 conference, RIAA president Cary Sherman said the amount could vary based on downloading activity.

"We have settlement parameters that are closer to a flat rate," Sherman said. "The amount of illegal activity may be a factor, just like how early in the process the settlement occurs, but we try to stay close to our general settlement parameters as a rule."

RIAA general counsel Steven Marks said that litigation has been the most effective means of curtailing illegal downloading.

"Artists, background musicians, songwriters and others in the music industry have suffered tremendous harm from this illegal activity," Marks said. "Thousands of jobs have been lost. Unfortunately, holding people responsible through legal actions has proven the best deterrent to this continued illegal and harmful activity. We hope that one day soon these suits will not be necessary."

Sherman said the association plans to send out approximately 400 letters each month.

THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS

What is the price of getting caught? According to Chris Ly, a senior journalism major at ASU, it's not cheap.

In 2005, Ly was sued by the RIAA for illegally downloading music. He received a letter at his parents' house from the RIAA informing him of the lawsuit. Initially, Ly didn't believe the letter was real.

"I thought it was a joke," he said. "You look at most of these things, and you just don't think it'll happen to you."

Ly quickly learned that the lawsuit was no laughing matter when he called the phone number provided in the letter. The settlement the RIAA offered: about $4,000.

Ly said he had about 800 songs on his computer, half of which he downloaded from peer-to-peer file-sharing sites such as Kazaa, and half that had come from CDs he'd purchased. Ly said he forgot to turn off the file-sharing feature, which allowed other users to download his music as long as the program was running. He guessed that the lawsuit stemmed from file-sharing he did while living in Cholla Hall at ASU, but he was never contacted by ASU before or after receiving the letter.

Ly opted not to hire a lawyer and instead took out a student loan to settle the suit. He was also asked to remove the file-sharing program from his computer, which he'd already done, and delete all of the music files listed in the suit. Ly said he doesn't know of any other students who have been sued by the RIAA. He was undecided on whether the current batch of students facing potential lawsuits should accept the settlement or try to fight it.

"It's hard to say," Ly said. "For a lot of students, I think it might be good to try to fight it, but for some students like me, who were in a situation where they couldn't financially fight it, I think that it's kind of hard for them to decide which way to go. I don't really know if there's even a good way to go about it."

While Sherman characterizes file-sharing on college campuses as "extensive and disproportionately problematic," Ly said that college students just make easy targets.

"I think it kind of sucks to target college students, especially since, if they're in my position, they're in no real financial position to fight this type of thing," Ly said. "They don't have the money to go about getting a lawyer. Most of them don't have any idea what their rights are to fight this."

SKEWED PROBLEM?

So how big of a problem is illegal file-sharing at ASU? Recent front-page stories in the Arizona Republic and the State Press noted the fact that ASU ranks 24th on a "worst offenders" list of colleges released by the RIAA. The list ranks colleges based on the number of copyright violation notices the RIAA sent each school regarding illegal music downloading.

What both stories failed to note is that, with more than 51,000 students, ASU also has the largest enrollment of any college in the country. When only raw numbers are taken into account, it's a safe bet that ASU would land at or near the top of just about any list of any activity, legal or otherwise, undertaken by college students.

So isn't it actually a good sign that ASU only ranks 24th? ASU spokeswoman Terri Shafer thinks so.

"If you look at the number of letters that they sent us divided by the number of students we have, we are way, way down the list," Shafer said. "We're a lot lower on a per capita basis than 24."

Comparing the RIAA's list with enrollment figures from the US Department of Education's website, College Times found that ASU ranks well below any other college on the list in terms of notices per capita. ASU received 6.5 notices from the RIAA for every 1,000 students enrolled. The two colleges above and below ASU on the list, Seton Hall (23rd) and Marshall (25th), received 35 and 24 notices per 1,000 students, respectively.

"We do everything the RIAA recommends that a university do," Shafer said. "It's a little bit disturbing that the RIAA is taking this particular approach based on those two facts - that we're already adhering to their practices and that we're way down the list in terms of per capita number of letters received."

Shafer said that the monetary expense of dealing with the 23 pre-litigation letters, including the manpower involved in identifying the IP addresses, locating the equipment and determining what individual is responsible, ultimately falls on Arizona taxpayers.

"One of the things that we have to think about is, perhaps the RIAA should be sharing some of the cost, because it's to their benefit that we do this work on their behalf," she said.

"We're among the good guys," Shafer said. "Both the students and the university are among the good guys, in terms of practice, doing all we're supposed to be doing, and the vast majority of students adhering to copyright law and respecting copyright law. So why is the RIAA singling us out?"

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools