RIAA is unfairly targeting students

The music industry is at it again, hunting down small fish in the gigantic sea of music downloaders to make examples of them. In the past it was harmless 12-year-olds downloading their favorite Britney Spears song.

Now the real battle has officially commenced and the Recording Industry Association of America is currently suing universities for access to students' names and personal information so they can sue students for downloading music on peer-to-peer networks like Limewire.

Last week, a federal judge in Norfolk, Va., overturned a previous ruling that allowed the College of William and Mary to ignore subpoenas that requested personal information about students believed to be illegally downloading music. The college had attempted to protect the students, but now must release the names of at least 20 students who the RIAA plans to subsequently sue.

In February 2007, the RIAA began a campaign aimed at college students when it sent pre-litigation settlement letters through schools to 400 students nationwide. Since then, the RIAA has sent letters to more than 7,000 students nationwide.

This has become a rampant problem occurring at universities nationwide. College students, especially those who live on campus, are being unfairly targeted because they are easy marks. Universities usually keep tabs on students' Internet activity and when the RIAA comes knocking, this information is handed over to be used against the student in a lawsuit, whether the school wants to or not.

It also doesn't hurt that students are usually inexperienced with legal proceedings and have most likely never been sued before; therefore, when they receive a pre-litigation settlement letter in the mail, many times they just pay the settlement without getting any further consultation.

The settlements that the RIAA has been offering are typically between $3,000 and $5,000. Not exactly pocket change, but also nowhere near the amount that it could cost if the students took their case to court against an industry with ridiculously high-priced lawyers on retainer.

This is what the RIAA counts on. They hope that students will see them as a Goliath and be afraid to challenge them in court, instead choosing to pay the settlement cost.

It's also no coincidence that the number of lawsuits against college-age music pirates increases substantially at the end of each semester. It's all about strategy. The RIAA steps up the unnecessary prosecution of these offenses during exam time because it knows that students are far less likely to go to court over when they have to worry about finals as well.

There's no doubt that music downloading still goes on around college campuses, and it probably always will to some extent; but college students may not be the huge revenue buzz-kill that the entertainment industry purports them to be.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which protects the intellectual property rights of movies in much the same way the RIAA does for music, recently admitted to overestimating the amount of money they lost due to college piracy by almost 30 percent.

If these piracy estimates were so far off, the legitimacy of ones the RIAA uses as justification for its actions should certainly be called into question. If the RIAA were to claim that one million college students are currently downloading music illegally, 300,000 of those claims could be completely fabricated.

The accuracy of these numbers is significant - statistical errors like the MPAA's indicate that students aren't necessarily the problem; rather, they are just an easy target.

The RIAA started out as a group to protect the rights of musicians, but has now become a group who protects the interests of the record labels - using scare tactics to intimidate everyday citizens into paying large sums of money for actions that many musicians now recognize and support. Since 2003, when the industry group decided to take on the world, it has filed more than 29,000 lawsuits against people it suspected of downloading music illegally by using file-sharing programs.

The legal maneuvering and frivolous lawsuits are getting the RIAA absolutely nowhere. In fact, it only makes the music industry look pitiful when it cries poor from top-floor penthouses and half-million dollar vehicles.

It's time to find an alternative - a litigation-free compromise between profit-hungry record labels and the everyday consumer that will spare the innocent college student.

The first step is to acknowledge that the compact disc is on its way out, and mp3 players are here to stay. Music needs to be more affordable online, as the price of music should reflect the cost of production. A Russian Web site, Allofmp3.com, had a viable solution, which was to charge between 10 and 25 cents per song based on its current download popularity. The only thing their novel idea got them was, you guessed it, a lawsuit from the RIAA, in the amount of $1.65 trillion.

Until the music industry realizes that its archaic way of protecting music copyrights has no chance for success, this music lovers' quarrel will never end. One last word of warning: your school can't protect you anymore, so make sure your music downloading is legitimate.