College Students Agree to Pay RIAA to Settle Online Music Piracy Lawsuit

Recently, four university students settled lawsuits brought against them by the Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA") by agreeing to make payments to the RIAA totalling between $12,000 and $17,500 in annual installments from 2003 to 2006. The RIAA had commenced separate lawsuits against the four students last month for operating file-search services that searched for MP3 song files on computers connected to the internal networks of their colleges. In addition, the students shared copyrighted music from their computers. The terms of the settlements also required the students to shut down the network services that they had been operating and to agree not to knowingly infringe the record label's copyrights when they use the Internet. These lawsuits mark the first time the RIAA has sued students instead of companies associated with peer-to-peer piracy. The RIAA is seeking to put pressure on universities to control file sharing on their networks and to crack down on campus file sharing. In response to this growing pressure, one school has shut down access to peer-to-peer services such as Grokster, Kazaa, and Morpheus. Citing an effort to avoid any legal action from the music industry, the New Jersey Institute of Technology will no longer allow its students and staff to use P2P services on its network. For more information visit: http://news.com.com/2100-1027-995429.html?tag=nl http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-999332.html http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58698,00.html Summary by: Nick Wong