Daniel Peng '05 and the Recording Industry Association of America have reached a settlement in the copyright infringement suit the group brought against him last month, lawyers for the two sides said yesterday. While denying any wrongdoing, Peng has agreed to pay $15,000 to the industry association.
The amount is only one tenth of the maximum penalty for one count of copyright infringement. The original filing suggested Peng was liable for thousands of violations.
The lawsuit against Peng is one of three the RIAA filed in early April for what could have been billions of dollars. The suit alleged that Peng illegally shared copyrighted music from his computer and facilitated file-sharing of copyrighted music through his website, wake.princeton.edu.
"I'm definitely relieved now that it's all over," said Peng, who said he is looking forward to getting back to his life as it used to be.
According to a statement from the RIAA, the group has also reached settlements with the other three college students. These agreements include monetary damages ranging from $12,000 to $17,500. The RIAA thought these amounts were appropriate given the limited means of the defendants and the unprecedented nature of the suits, it said in a press release.
"All in all, it could have been a lot worse," said Howard Ende, Peng's lead counsel in the case.
Litigation costs
"No student can really undertake to defend an action like this in federal court: it's too expensive and there's always the possibility of a mega-judgment," Ende said. "So in some ways Dan and the others were forced to settle, and [the RIAA] came up with numbers they felt would send a message."
However, he said that a student committed to establishing the legality of a service like Wake would have "a very good chance of success" in court.
RIAA senior vice-president Matt Oppenheim disagreed with the idea that insurmountable legal costs prompted the settlement. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that supports freedom in the information age, offered to defend Peng for free, he said.
Instead, he suggested that Peng and Ende chose to settle because of significant legal exposure they would incur at trial.
When it comes to claims of possible victory, Oppenheim said, "the Iraqi information minister is more credible in his claims than Mr. Ende is."
The public settlement, which was finalized yesterday, dismissed the case against Peng and stipulates that the RIAA cannot refile a claim for the same violations, Ende said.
He said this arrangement puts Peng in a favorable position compared to defendants at other schools, who remain under the jurisdiction of the federal court and whose liability for the original charges may continue.
While the amounts of money involved in the settlements are not particularly large in absolute terms, the RIAA said it hopes they will be significant enough to emphasize the gravity of the issue.
According to Oppenheim, the RIAA never expected to get the billions of dollars implied by the initial filing. Instead, it wanted to send a message to people operating similar file-sharing networks that the RIAA is prepared to enforce its rights.
"I think, by and large, most of the networks like this have come down," he said.
"Many universities have started to look at this issue and educate their students about what they need to do," he said. "There are a few holdouts and a few disbelievers and we'll obviously have to deal with them."
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