After the Recording Industry Association of America sent pre-litigation settlements to N.C. State illegal downloaders last month, the company stepped up its game this week.
The RIAA filed 23 music theft lawsuits against anonymous NCSU network users after they refused to take the settlement.
The lawsuits are in the form of “John Doe lawsuits,” meaning that the RIAA does not know the names of the people it has filed against.
The users have been identified by their IP addresses, according to an RIAA spokesperson who declined to give her name or be directly quoted.
The same spokesperson said the company will have to wait on a judge to grant the RIAA permission to begin the name-discovery process.
But Pam Gerace, the director of Student Legal Services at the University, is fighting the lawsuits for her student clients. She advises that the students should remain anonymous.
“The RIAA actually said they might have use for the names in the future,” Gerace said,
She added that this could prove dangerous for the students, as the RIAA could pursue other legal actions or give the names to record companies.
The letter sent to NCSU had nothing about a timeline for other settlements to be made or what the lawsuit will entail, Gerace said.
“There’s no timeline, and that’s driving my clients up the wall,” she said. “But [the students] can take their time — the RIAA didn’t say anything about that. ”
After the RIAA sent its first settlement last month, Gerace said only one student came to Legal Services to take the settlement.
According to the RIAA spokesperson, of the 400 students who the RIAA sent settlement letters to nationally, 198 of them agreed to it.
The RIAA accompanied the initial settlements along with a sample listing of songs the students downloaded.
“[The number of songs] ranged from 10 to 2,000,” Gerace said. “They said it could be $750 per song. The letter said, though, that they could just pay $3,000, which would not be based on the number of songs.”
Now the RIAA will go through with the subpoenas, according to Gerace.
“They’ll go to the University Council, then [Information Technology Division] and the students will be notified,” Gerace said.
The students who are being subpoenaed do have options though through Legal Services. One of those options, Gerace said, is making a motion to quash.
“If someone is subpoenaed and they say they don’t want to comply, the subpoenaed party says they can’t come for a certain reason,” Gerace said. “Then it goes to the federal court who could take a year to make a decision.”
It is also possible that the subpoenas are invalid, she added. In this case they don’t have to respond.
“But if they do nothing and it is valid, then the University would have to give out their names and addresses,” Gerace said.
She said she still expects another round of settlements to come through, but this time the stakes will be raised.
“When they do the subpoenas, there will be another round of settlements — those will obviously be more than the last one,” Gerace said. “It will probably be closer to $5,000.”
Gerace added that any students who are still receiving these letters should contact Student Legal Services.
