File-Swapping Students Fined

Four university students have reached settlements in music piracy lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The RIAA sued the four students separately in April. The music industry association accused them of sharing copyright material and operating on-campus, Napster-like file-swapping services designed to search for music on computers connected to school networks.

Settlement Reached

Under the terms of the settlements this week, the students have agreed to pay fines, the RIAA announced Friday.

Two students are at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Jesse Jordan agreed to pay $12,000 and Aaron Sherman, $17,000. Princeton University's Daniel Peng and Michigan Technological University's Joseph Nievelt will pay the RIAA $15,000 each.

The RIAA will collect those amounts in annual increments between 2003 and 2006. The students are also expected to disable the Web sites that allowed campus users to download songs and files from school network computers.

The RIAA said that the trade group was pleased that the cases, first made public in early April, were settled quickly.

The music association is confident the defendants will no longer engage in the type of file-swapping for which they were sued, the RIAA said in a statement Friday. The students now clearly understand the seriousness with which the group views that type of conduct, said Matt Oppenheim, RIAA senior vice president of business and legal affairs.

Originally, the RIAA was looking for damages payable up to $150,000 per song. In Friday's statement, the group said it believes the settlement amounts are appropriate. However, the organization warns that in future cases, it may not be as lenient and could enforce stiffer settlement obligations to individuals.

New Tactic

The lawsuit marks the first of its kind in which the RIAA has sued individual users. Historically, it has pursued legal action against file-sharing services like Napster, which conduct the majority of illegal file-swapping. Napster itself was put out of business by an RIAA lawsuit.

The RIAA has, however, pressured businesses and colleges to clamp down on copyright infringement involving the use of music-sharing software and sites.

"We have also sent a clear signal to others that this kind of activity is illegal," Oppenheim said in the RIAA's statement. "The message is clearly getting through that distributing copyrighted works without permission is illegal, can have consequences, and that we will move quickly and aggressively to enforce our rights."

Since filing the initial suit against the four students, at least 18 similar campus file-sharing services have come down without the RIAA having to issue further lawsuits, according to the statement.