Friday, October 10, 2008

Pirates of the 21st century
Students fined for illegal music downloads
By KELSEY LAUER
Assistant News Editor

Although Ryan Reilly, Battle Creek senior, had been illegally downloading music from Limewire since his first year of college, it was T-Pain’s “Can’t Believe It,” that tipped him off to campus authorities.

“I have over 1,000 songs on my computer,” Reilly said. “I usually unshare everything, but there were about 24 songs that I must have forgotten (to disconnect). Two weeks ago, I got an e-mail from the school saying something about copyright infringement and how I was fined $200.”

Reilly is one of many students to participate in music piracy. According to a study completed by the NPD (formerly National Purchase Diary) market research firm, college students accounted for more than 1.6 billion illegal music downloads in 2006.

But while music piracy is prevalent, it is no longer being tolerated on Albion’s campus. In fact, according to campus safety director Kenneth Snyder, those who are caught participating in music piracy face a $200 fine exacted by Albion and the possibility of being sued for up to $5,000 per song by the recording company that holds the copyright to the song.

As a result, Reilly’s case is only one of many at Albion College in recent months. According to Snyder, about 30 students were fined during the last month of the spring 2008 semester, and 16 have been fined  this semester.

The fines were based on complaints filed with Albion College by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) -on the behalf of its member companies - under the copyright law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), according to RIAA spokesperson Liz Kennedy.

“What happens is that there is a complaint filed by copyright holders,” Snyder said. “We forward the information to Information Technology, who determines which student is involved.”

From there, a student who is fined will have the music and the file sharing software through which music was illegally downloading removed from his or her computer, Snyder said.

Kennedy said that the RIAA sends DMCA pre-litigation letters on behalf of its member companies to universities when illegal download activity has been discovered on their network, and it is up to those specific universities to identify the network user and forward the letter to them.

“The letter allows individuals to resolve forthcoming copyright infringement claims against them at a discounted rate before a formal suit is filed,” Kennedy said. “Any student can, of course, ignore the letter. That means we will initiate a typical ‘John Doe’ lawsuit.”

The lawsuit is termed “John Doe” because the RIAA does not know the name of the individual against whom the suit is being filed when the lawsuit is first initiated, according to Kennedy.

After the lawsuit is filed, a significantly discounted settlement is no longer available, simply because the lawsuit has already been filed, Kennedy said.

The chance of being fined or sued is enough to deter some students from using media download programs.

“I probably wouldn’t (download music illegally,” said Christine Marble, Midland sophomore. “I’m going to try to avoid doing it because I can’t afford (the fine).”