School's out, but the music industry isn't taking a break from litigation. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced a new round of copyright infringement lawsuits last week against 91 students at 33 colleges, including Princeton.
This latest series of lawsuits includes one suit filed against a Princeton student, University spokesman Eric Quinones said in an email Wednesday. The student has already been notified by the University.
Although violators can be fined up to $150,000 per copyrighted work infringed, students typically settle out of court with the RIAA for around $3,000 to $5,000.
The RIAA filed suits in mid-April against 25 University students accused of illegally trading music files on the high-speed Internet2 network operated by 206 universities and affiliated institutions nationwide. This latest wave of litigation also targets students who allegedly swapped music on the research network.
"As long as students continue to corrupt this specialized academic network for the flagrant theft of music, we will continue to make it clear that there are consequences for these unlawful actions," RIAA president Cary Sherman said in a statement recently.
The file-sharing program i2hub runs on the Internet2 network and was previously thought by many students to be safe from the industry's legal grasp, but has recently been singled out by the RIAA as a zone for lawlessness.
"With the multitude of legal music alternatives available to students today, there is simply no excuse for this ongoing, illegal downloading on college campuses," Sherman said.
Students at Harvard, NYU, Brown, Columbia, and USC were among those targeted in the most recent round of litigation, announced May 26.
Since the RIAA files lawsuits using the IP addresses of "John Does" illegally sharing music on peer-to-peer networks, the Princeton student being sued has not been identified by name.
The RIAA must subpoena the University to officially obtain the identity behind the address. The University received a letter from the RIAA Wednesday indicating it would soon deliver a subpoena seeking the identification of the student in question, but no specific time frame was indicated, according to Quinones.
Quinones also said the University is committed to addressing the problem of illegal file-sharing and that students are taking notice.
"The University has made it clear to students that copyright infringement must be taken seriously, both through our published policies and through education outreach efforts," Quinones said.
"A debate on file-sharing issues held on campus [in May], which was organized by Princeton students, indicates that they are paying greater attention to these matters, but the University will continue to make students aware of the serious consequences of violating copyright laws," he added.
The University has no plans to change the disciplinary process for student violators, Quinones said. Students typically receive a dean's warning for the first violation of the University's file-sharing policies, and six months' disciplinary probation for a second violation or an egregious violation. A dean's warning is not recorded on a student's permanent record.
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