Students Sued For Illegal Music

Marc Fedoras ’09 opened his campus mailbox expecting to find the occasional FUSA flyer. But what was inside was far from a cheery announcement.

Fedoras was one of 15 Fairfield students who received a letter informing him he was being sued by the Recording Institute of America (RIAA) for sharing copyrighted music on his computer.

According to the RIAA Web site, on April 11, the RIAA sent a total of 413 pre-litigation letters on behalf of the major recording companies to 22 universities, including Cornell, UMass-Amherst, University of New Hampshire. The letters were sent to 50 students, the highest number yet.

“The letter was completely out of the blue,” said Fedoras. “I wasn’t really worried about getting caught and then it was just like getting struck by lightning.”

“You hear about it but you never think it’s going to happen to you,” he said.

The letters, sent from lawyers representing the RIAA, said that he was being sued for “sharing” music, not downloading it. He is being sued for 180 songs he had illegally shared with other users, and the letter listed a few of them. Fedoras lives in Kostka Hall, and said that his roommate as well as another student in his hallway are being sued by RIAA.

“From what I hear, it’s happening to thousand of kids across the country,” said Fedoras.

If Fedoras goes to court with RIAA, the company will be suing him for $750 per song, which could potentially amount to $135,000. Fedoras plans to settle the situation outside of court; he has two options: paying $3,000 up front or paying $3,250 over a six-month period.

In February, the RIAA launched new deterrence and education initiatives targeted at college students who download illegally.

During this initiative, pre-litigation settlement letters were sent to schools informing them of a copyright infringement suit against one of its students or personnel and request that university administrators forward the letter to the appropriate network user, according to the RIAA Web site.

“We hope that fans on campuses and administrators recognize the extraordinary legal marketplace for music online now,” said Steven Marks, general counsel and executive vice president of RIAA, on its Web site. “The question we ask of students is this: with high-quality legal music options available for free or deeply discounted, why take the twin risks of exposing your computer to viruses or spyware by downloading from an illegal site or exposing yourself to a costly lawsuit?”

Fairfield’s Computer and Networking Services sent a campus-wide announcement this past month informing students of the RIAA initiative and advising students of the dangers of downloading copyrighted materials.

CNS declined to comment.

The Fairfield University Student Handbook covers the issue of unauthorized use or sale of copyrighted works. It is listed under Fairfield’s Computer Systems Acceptable Use Policy.

One passage states: “Users are responsible for use of software and electronic materials in accordance with copyright and licensing restrictions and applicable university policies. Fairfield University equipment and software may not be used to violate copyright or the terms of any license agreement. No one may inspect, modify, distribute, or copy proprietary data, directories, programs, files, disks or other software without proper authorization.”

Dean of Students Tom Pellegrino encourages students to know the laws and to be aware of potential issues when it comes to file sharing.

“The DiMenna-Nyselius Library has offered courses on copyright and intellectual property to faculty,” said Pellegrino. “Students themselves would be excellent facilitators of this process, as they are most in tune with the policies and practices.”

Fairfield students are not the only ones facing lawsuits regarding illegal music downloads.

Brown University’s free cultural organization is currently challenging the new copyright laws “to raise awareness, promote discourse surrounding the ideas of open source culture, looser intellectual property law,” according to a U-Wire article.

Students at the University of Mississippi said they are not concerned by the crack down on illegal downloading because they have not seen the repercussions of obtaining music from the Internet.