RIAA Dishes Yet Another Round Of Mindless Drive-Thru Settlement Lawsuits

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has unleashed another wave of pre-litigation settlement letters to universities this week. Just over 400 letters were dispersed to students in 12 universities across the United States, who were identified by IP addresses. Recipients of the letters have the opportunity to avoid a potential copyright infringement lawsuit by settling out of court for a reduced fee, something we’ve dubbed the RIAA Drive-Thru Settlement Plan.

The RIAA’s latest wave of letters were dished to: Boston University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters); Columbia University (50); Drexel University (33); Indiana University (40); North Carolina State University (35); Ohio State University (30); Purdue University (28); Tufts University (20); University of Maine System (32); University of New Hampshire (32); University of Southern California (50); and the University of Virginia (16). The letters cite individuals for online music theft over the universities’ computer networks via peer-to-peer services such as Ares, BitTorrent, Gnutella, Limewire and Morpheus.

Formal lawsuits have been filed against 2,465 letter recipients since the campaign first began last year, according to the RIAA. These individuals either chose to not settle the claim or were not given the option to settle early because the university failed to forward the letters. Of the 5,005 letters sent in prior rounds, the RIAA has reached settlements with more than 2,300 of those individuals.

Author: FutureMusic

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