Lawsuits to end in fight against music piracy

By Peter Hargarten

The recording industry announced it is abandoning individual lawsuits in its fight against illegal downloading, a tactic that often targeted college students. The industry will collaborate with Internet service providers instead, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The new strategy will involve various punishments administered by service providers. The Recording Industry Association of America will continue to seek out cases of copyright infringement, but in lieu of pursuing legal action, they will work with the ISPs to find the particular individual and serve them with a warning.

They will monitor different file-sharing networks and notify ISPs about suspected copyright infringement by providing them with the IP address of the perpetrator. The ISPs will then determine which individual committed the infraction and will notify them either through e-mails or letters.

While the specific details of the agreement are confidential, punishments for repeat offenders could include increased service costs, fines or complete termination of Internet service.

The RIAA's new approach is similar to the approach taken by most universities over the last five years, and the announcement should not change the way Santa Clara administers its network, said Chief Information Officer for Information Technology Ron Danielson.

He said the relationship between Santa Clara and the RIAA has always been a legal one, and the university "will do what they are legally obligated to do."

The university has had a recent surge of Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices this year, 27 that were received in the first week of winter quarter. A takedown notice informs the university that the RIAA has detected illegal activity by an individual and it expects the university to take action to stop it.

The RIAA did not respond to interview requests.

Each DMCA notice triggers a private response between Information Technology services and the particular student it involves.

In total, the university has received 283 DMCA takedown notices since the 2003-2004 academic year.

Danielson said, each notice takes approximately two hours of staff time to process, with additional time required of IT and the student to completely resolve each case.

At 27 notices a week, DMCA takedowns would account for one full staff person devoted to copyright infringement.

While remaining positive about his strong principles of open and private network access, Danielson said he is concerned with the growing impact that these notices could have in drastically and negatively affecting the university's Internet access policies.

When the RIAA chooses to pursue a student more aggressively, they issue subpoenas for private student contact information.

Santa Clara has received four such subpoenas -- all during the 2007-2008 year -- and four students have been forced to settle with the lobby group.

One settled for $4,000 and the others at $3,000.

Most ISPs have refused to comment on the new strategy.

Sonic.net, an ISP based out of Santa Rosa, Calif., did not respond to interview requests.

Until now, the RIAA, which lobbies for the world's four biggest music companies -- Sony BMG, Warner, Universal and EMI -- has been combating piracy on its own.

The group began its litigation campaign in 2003, and it now includes more than 30,000 lawsuits against illegal file swappers. The campaign has been controversial, as the RIAA pursued large settlements from single mothers, retirees, a 13-year-old girl and one dead individual.

The only case to make it in front of a jury involved single mother Jammie Thomas, who was ordered to pay $222,000 in damages.

The judgment was negated when the court approved her request for a retrial.

While announcing an end to future litigation, the RIAA has publicly acknowledged its plan to pursue suits already in progress.

One case, UMG Recordings v. Briggs, was filed just a week prior to the announcement, and subpoenas and summons have already gone out to the defendant.

Danielson said students' roles in piracy have been emphasized due to concerns that students would carry their downloading habits into adult life.

He suggested that students have already established these habits prior to their arrival on campus, and that educating the public at an early age would be more effective at curbing copyright infringement.

Swig Hall resident Nathan Rogers said he doesn't download copyrighted material because he worries about the consequences.

"I know my Internet can be monitored on campus," he said.

This change in strategy comes at an interesting time for the university, considering the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 and the record number of DMCA notices received since the first of the year.

Passed in August of last year, the HEOA addresses many aspects of the federal relationship with higher education. Unique to the act was the tying of federal funding with a university's response to on-campus piracy.

While details have been slow to come out of Washington, the general guidelines as understood by Danielson call for university-developed plans to combat peer-to-peer file sharing, but provisions to collect these plans or to even implement them are unknown or nonexistent.

The only change in Santa Clara's policies will be an increase in documentation and transparency of their approaches to piracy.

Contact Peter Hargarten at phargarten@scu.edu.