RIAA Claims 25% Of Students Settle In New College Crackdown
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claims that 25% of the college students suspected of sharing music online who were served settlement letters have settled with the trade organization. The Recording Industry Association of America sent letters offering discounted settlements to 400 computer users at 13 universities in late February. Another batch was sent out this week. In total, 116 settlements were reached after the first round of letters went out.
Those letters targeted students at Arizona State University; Marshall University; North Carolina State University; North Dakota State University; Northern Illinois University; Ohio University; Syracuse University; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; University of Nebraska- Lincoln; University of South Florida; University of Southern California; University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and University of Texas, Austin.
As part of its ongoing copyright crackdown, the association has sued about 18,000 computer users nationwide since September 2003. The figure includes about 1,000 university students. In the association’s latest effort to curb music piracy, colleges are given letters to forward to students suspected of music piracy, Lamy said. Students are urged to contact the association to broker a settlement before a lawsuit is filed.
The second wave of letters the association sent out Wednesday targeted 405 students at 23 colleges. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln was the only school whose students — 61 in all — were targeted in both rounds of letters. UNL spokeswoman Kelly Bartling said the university was having problems identifying some of the targeted students because the university only stores computer usage records for 31 days.
The Future: Although, atypical, could purging school usage records become a new strategy for schools who don’t want to become pawns in the RIAA’s college crackdown?
