The national debate over file-sharing and online music theft hit the University personally this past term when the Recording Industry Association of America — a trade group representing major record labels — sued Daniel Peng '05 for what could have been billions of dollars.
Peng had been operating a website on the campus network known as "Wake," which let users search for shared files. The RIAA alleged that this site facilitated music theft on a grand scale, as students could simply copy files from each other's computers. The suit also alleged that Peng himself had made hundreds of copyrighted works available for download from his computer.
If he had been found liable in court, Peng could have been fined $150,000 for each act of copyright infringement. The suit filed on April 3 alleged that he was responsible for thousands of infringements..
However, after a month of negotiation and speculation, the suit — along with three others filed against college students for operating similar services — was settled out of court. Under the terms of the settlement, Peng agreed to pay the RIAA $15,000 and take down his site while not admitting any wrongdoing.
The suit came as a shock to the community. There is an established mechanism in place for copyright holders to contact the University when a student is in violation of the law. However, in this case that mechanism was bypassed in favor of a lawsuit.
According to the University's copyright compliance officer in the Office of Information Technology, Rita Saltz, the University ordinarily receives complaints from industry groups and then contacts the appropriate students — who most often cooperate immediately. In the last year, Saltz's office received about 130 complaints, but she said the suit came as a "terrible surprise."
"I had no idea this was coming," she said.
It took University students little time to react to news of the lawsuit. Within hours of the suit's announcement, several campus network search engines like Wake went down, and students who had previously shared thousands of songs and hundreds of movies had removed their collections from public view.
"The RIAA really wants to send a frightening message," wrote David Dobkin, chair of the computer science department and next year's dean of the faculty, in an email to a reporter. "These students (Peng et. al.) are being set up to scare others away from doing this."
In fact, the scale of the lawsuit led some to wonder if the RIAA actually expected to collect damages. "The amount of money they are asking for is larger than the entire profit of the record industry in one year, and perhaps in its entire history," said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The suit against Peng comprised two separate claims. The RIAA alleged that Peng committed direct copyright infringement by distributing copyrighted music files from his personal computer. It also claimed that Peng engaged in contributory infringement by maintaining the Wake service, which facilitated music theft by others on a larger scale than would have otherwise been possible.
While direct infringement charges are simply a factual matter, the contributory infringement law is open to interpretation, von Lohmann said.
"Somebody needs to tell you that infringement is going on," in order to prove contributory infringement von Lohmann said. "In this case it appears that the recording industry hadn't notified Princeton or Mr. Peng [about copyright violations as a result of Wake searches] so there is an open question as to whether the [RIAA] filled the requirements of the 'Napster' ruling."
So far, the RIAA has taken action only against those who have created tools that they believe aid music piracy. But it is possible that if, in a few years, the file-sharing problem worsens, the association will resort to filing suits against individuals solely for direct infringement.
Case settled
"I'm definitely relieved now that it's all over," said Peng on May 1 after the settlement was announced. He said he was looking forward to getting back to his life as it used to be.
Howard Ende, Peng's lead counsel in the case and former general counsel of the University, was satisfied with the settlement and said it "could have been a lot worse."
"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."
RIAA senior vice-president Matt Oppenheim disagreed with the idea that insurmountable legal costs prompted the settlement. The Electronic Frontier Foundation offered to defend Peng for free, he said.
Instead, Oppenheim suggested that Peng and Ende chose to settle because of significant legal exposure they would have incurred at trial.
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 in the initial filing. Instead, he said it wanted to send a message to people operating similar file-sharing networks that the RIAA is prepared to defend its rights.
"I think, by and large, most of the networks like this have come down," he said.
Since the settlement, Peng has begun to collect donations through the wake site. To date, he has received more than $1,500.
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