Recording industry fighting illegal sharing and downloads
Illegally downloading and sharing music may not be as easy or consequence-free as it was in the past, as 25 universities across the nation found out last month.
On Feb. 28, the Recording Industry Association of America took a new route to catching and prosecuting those who have illegally downloaded music and have it available to others. This route is through users registered with universities across the nation, and the consequence is a prelitigation or prelawsuit notice.
These prelitigation notices were sent to users who had anywhere from one song to hundreds, according to Bob Bayn, team coordinator of IT security/operations. The picking of the universities also was at random, though most were on the East Coast.
“[The recording industry] doesn’t want to be predictable,” Bayn said.
In the past, the RIAA has sent take-down notices to universities for computers on their network. The notices demand the legal right to have the property-downloaded music removed from public availability, Bayn said. USU has received between 300 and 400 of these notices in the past six years, Bayn said.
What many students don’t realize is that when they download music using a free program such as LimeWire or Kazza, it is then made available to others to also download for free. This free sharing is what concerns the music industry and is the reason for their recent action. They aren’t able to tell if the music was legally downloaded, but they can easily tell if it is available to others. When Bayn has forwarded these notices in the past, he said he has often heard that the students didn’t know their music was available to others.
After the new push, take-down notices will still be sent out, but there will also be notices of the filing of a lawsuit for copyright infringements. Bayn said he didn’t know how the RIAA would decide which one to send to him. The Internet service provider then forwards this letter to the user, who then has the opportunity to settle the claims outside of court or get an attorney and fight the battle in federal court.
For students whose monetary resources are already maxed out, either way can mean greater debt. Craig Simper of general counsel at USU compared it to fighting a 10,000-pound gorilla. The student’s resources are simply nothing compared to that of the RIAA or other attorneys hired by a group of recording companies. Even if the university gets involved, its resources are limited compared to those of the recording industry. Simper encouraged students to get counsel from parents or legal advisers before taking any action.
Both Simper and Bayn said they feel that entering a credit card number on the Internet to pay the fee and avoid an actual lawsuit is simply too easy. While it can keep the user out of legal trouble, the fees seem to be out of proportion at $750 minimum per copyrighted recording.
The question for many involved is whether the notices are the best way to stop peer-to-peer file sharing.
Being involved in forwarding these notices or lawsuits is “not a part of the educational mission of the university,” Bayn said.
There are ways to prevent the prelawsuit letters from coming to USU and they include educating students about what the programs they use actually do and providing them with other sources. Bayn said he has no idea of the possibility of USU receiving such notices in the past, but the possibility is always there and students need to be aware of that.
The new Living and Learning Center already has a greater bandwidth than the rest of campus, but next year the increase will be everywhere. This may attract the attention of the RIAA because it will mean that others will be able to download the USU users’ songs at a faster rate, Bayn said.
Matthew Webb, a freshman who lives on campus, said he received an e-mail about the action being taken and through it learned about Ruckus, a free, legal way to download music.
“I am now a big fan,” Webb said.
Anyone downloading music needs to be aware of the consequences they may face if they do so illegally or share their music with peer-to-peer programs.
-albaugh@cc.usu.edu