After slapping N.C. State with 23 lawsuits in April, the Recording Industry Association of America has upped the ante against NCSU, dishing out 43 pre-litigation settlements last week in an effort to curb illegal music downloading.
The settlements are the fifth wave of letters sent out by the RIAA to universities with a high number of illegal activity since the Association started the process in February.
The 43 sent to NCSU students is the highest of any school in this wave of letters.
According to an RIAA spokesperson that chose not to give her name, the student who receives the letter can choose to pay the settlement fee or possibly face higher costs if a lawsuit is given out.
When the RIAA first started giving out the settlements, the group gave students 20 days to pay. But because schedules are different in the summer it has increased the pay period to approximately 40 days, according to the spokesperson.
NCSU’s Student Legal Services did not return phone calls this week asking for comment on the situation.
As far as punishment on campus, a first-time offense merits a written warning and a conversation about how to clean up the downloads, according to Paul Cousins, the director of the office of student conduct.
“You have to make sure there are no Trojan or Spyware viruses that came from those downloads,” Cousins said.
Though the downloading the RIAA is looking for is on a much larger scale.
“When the RIAA finds someone, it’s because their computer is on 24/7 and making their songs available through P2P servers,” Cousins said. “The RIAA can run software to find MP3’s on the server.”
Repeat offenses can result in a loss of the student’s ResNet account, according to Cousins.
The settlements come the same time U.S. government legislation is being formed to fight illegal downloading — primarily on college campuses which account for approximately 1.3 billion illegal downloads a year, according to an NPD market survey.
Members of the House Committee on Science and Technology met last week to discuss ways to prevent downloading on campus as part of an effort along with the RIAA to curb the downloading.
Users are identified through IP addresses, but RIAA cannot find out the actual names of the students without a judge order.
