Matt Lydon, a senior history major at NIU, knows what the Recording Industry Association of America is capable of doing to college students.

“One of my friend got fined $3,000 and she only had 50 songs,” Lydon said. “I download from iTunes when I’m at school, but if I need to, I’ll have one of my friends who aren’t in the dorms, download a song off of LimeWire for me,” he added.

The RIAA is taking drastic steps to catch college students that download music illegally.

DRASTIC MEASURES

In a new article published by The Chronicle of Higher Education, an anonymous RIAA representative explained the methods as to how online pirates are targeted and caught, along with the litigation process that usually follows.

“It’s clear that the RIAA is focusing a major portion of their enforcement effort toward the university address space,” said NIU Director of Information Security and Operations Jim Fatz.

“This address space is easy to define and relatively open, and is therefore readily visible to the RIAA.”

Students using their college’s Internet service provider in the dorms or university computer labs to download music illegally, are at the highest risk for possible litigation from the RIAA.

The actual process in finding online pirates is simpler than some would think. Media Sentry, a third party hired by the RIAA, monitors popular peer-to-peer (P2P) download programs, such as LimeWire, to filter through songs that are copyrighted.

Once the copyrighted songs are found, all users sharing the file can be located via their IP address. Media Sentry then determines which Internet-service provider is hosting copyrighted material on their network, and the RIAA either asks the ISP or university to take the copyrighted songs down, or in more serious matters, “pre-litigation settlement letters” are sent out.

“Most typically we get an e-mail notice sent to the attention of the NIU Digital Millennium Copyright Act designee, from RIAA legal counsel, accompanied by legal documents,” Fatz said.

“We would certainly not be releasing any information to the RIAA if we did not have a legal requirement to do so.”

RIAA TARGETS COLLEGES

Ray Beckerman, an attorney, and partner at the New York firm of Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP., has been closely following the RIAA’s fight against illegal musical downloading since 2003, and has served as legal counsel to those facing litigation.

“They have been targeting college students, along with ordinary people,” Beckerman said. “Mainstream downloading pirates would never get caught by the RIAA’s fake ‘investigation.'”

Beckerman thinks that schools should not be releasing names to the RIAA due to a “breach of confidentiality.”

“Since universities are Internet service providers, they have a duty not to facilitate illegal downloading,” said Director of Students’ Legal Assistance Donald Henderson. “The policy of most universities is that if, and only if, they are subpoenaed, they will provide over the names of the persons who have been identified by their addresses as being the site where the illegal downloading is occurring,” Henderson added.

Last year, NIU was one of 19 schools that were targeted for illegal downloading, and since that time, nearly 100 “pre-litigation settlement letters” have been sent out to students.

“That’s a fairly large number,” Henderson said. “There’s nothing to stop RIAA from doing this again, or over and over.”

Students that received pre-litigation settlement letters have the option of settling for a compromised number of the RIAA’s choosing, if they want to avoid going to court.

Since 2000, LimeWire has been downloaded over 150,000,000 times, according to download.com.

It has become the primary peer-to-peer download program after Grokster and Kazaa discontinued copyrighted material being allowed on their programs, based on a settlement with the RIAA.

Other legal alternatives to download music include iTunes, Rhapsody, or Amazon.com. Prices vary between the different programs, but songs can range from 79 to 99 cents a piece, whereas complete albums start at $8.99 and more.

Ruckus, a free download program, is exclusively available for over 200 schools across the nation, allowing students with a valid .edu e-mail address to download music files. Due to a built-in encryption, the songs cannot be transferred to a CD or an MP3 player without an encryption device, such as Winamp, to convert wma files to wav or MP3 files.

For the last five years, the RIAA has sent out over 20,000 “pre-litigation letters” to people ranging from parents to small children.

THE CASE THAT STARTED IT ALL

Precedent was first set in the case of Capitol v. Thomas, the first lawsuit brought to trial by the RIAA for illegal downloading.

Jammie Thomas, a single mother, was found liable to pay $222,000, or $9,250 per song, for the 24 songs that the RIAA pursued litigation for. Thomas and her defense claimed that while she did download the songs, she never shared them. However, the plaintiffs said that merely making the song available for download was copyright infringement.

“It was an abomination that made our country an international laughing stock,” Beckerman said. “It was based on completely false legal theories, even the presiding judge knows that, and he knows he was misled by RIAA lawyers.”

Based on The Copyright Act, the RIAA reached the minimum figure of $750 per song in statuary damages, with the maximum figure of $150,000. Beckerman insists that a minimum fine of $750 per violation to 99 cent song is “absurd,” and it “goes in to fund further litigation.”

The argument over the interpretation of making a song “available” continues, with the presiding judge in the Capitol v. Thomas case reconsidering the legality of the information presented by the RIAA.

“Whether file shared or downloaded only for personal use, if someone does not pay for a song then it is still against the law to have the song if it is not offered for free,” Fatz said.

Although the days of Napster are over, illegal downloading is still occurring.

“Our thrust is to alert students beforehand,” Henderson said. “It is certainly possible to envision the possibility that RIAA may once again change its strategy and pursue another tactic, or give up the effort altogether, or that technology will make the dispute go away, but this is their

strategy, and suits are being filed.”

The only advice that Beckerman has to give to students charged by the RIAA is to fight back.

“I hate bullies,” Beckerman said.