RIAA files 23 lawsuits against NCSU
Pre-litigation settlements were followed by lawsuits this week for the University's illegal downloaders
Josh Harrell
Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: News
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After the Recording Industry Association of America sent pre-litigation settlements to N.C. State illegal downloaders last month, the company stepped up its game this week.
The RIAA filed 23 music theft lawsuits against anonymous NCSU network users after they refused to take the settlement.
The lawsuits are in the form of "John Doe lawsuits," meaning that the RIAA does not know the names of the people it has filed against.
The users have been identified by their IP addresses, according to an RIAA spokesperson who declined to give her name or be directly quoted.
The same spokesperson said the company will have to wait on a judge to grant the RIAA permission to begin the name-discovery process.
But Pam Gerace, the director of Student Legal Services at the University, is fighting the lawsuits for her student clients. She advises that the students should remain anonymous.
"The RIAA actually said they might have use for the names in the future," Gerace said,
She added that this could prove dangerous for the students, as the RIAA could pursue other legal actions or give the names to record companies.
The letter sent to NCSU had nothing about a timeline for other settlements to be made or what the lawsuit will entail, Gerace said.
"There's no timeline, and that's driving my clients up the wall," she said. "But [the students] can take their time -- the RIAA didn't say anything about that. "
After the RIAA sent its first settlement last month, Gerace said only one student came to Legal Services to take the settlement.
According to the RIAA spokesperson, of the 400 students who the RIAA sent settlement letters to nationally, 198 of them agreed to it.
The RIAA accompanied the initial settlements along with a sample listing of songs the students downloaded.
"[The number of songs] ranged from 10 to 2,000," Gerace said. "They said it could be $750 per song. The letter said, though, that they could just pay $3,000, which would not be based on the number of songs."
The RIAA filed 23 music theft lawsuits against anonymous NCSU network users after they refused to take the settlement.
The lawsuits are in the form of "John Doe lawsuits," meaning that the RIAA does not know the names of the people it has filed against.
The users have been identified by their IP addresses, according to an RIAA spokesperson who declined to give her name or be directly quoted.
The same spokesperson said the company will have to wait on a judge to grant the RIAA permission to begin the name-discovery process.
But Pam Gerace, the director of Student Legal Services at the University, is fighting the lawsuits for her student clients. She advises that the students should remain anonymous.
"The RIAA actually said they might have use for the names in the future," Gerace said,
She added that this could prove dangerous for the students, as the RIAA could pursue other legal actions or give the names to record companies.
The letter sent to NCSU had nothing about a timeline for other settlements to be made or what the lawsuit will entail, Gerace said.
"There's no timeline, and that's driving my clients up the wall," she said. "But [the students] can take their time -- the RIAA didn't say anything about that. "
After the RIAA sent its first settlement last month, Gerace said only one student came to Legal Services to take the settlement.
According to the RIAA spokesperson, of the 400 students who the RIAA sent settlement letters to nationally, 198 of them agreed to it.
The RIAA accompanied the initial settlements along with a sample listing of songs the students downloaded.
"[The number of songs] ranged from 10 to 2,000," Gerace said. "They said it could be $750 per song. The letter said, though, that they could just pay $3,000, which would not be based on the number of songs."
Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 10
Jake J
posted 4/16/07 @ 8:27 AM EST
How is this fighting the RIAA? Someone should really stick it to them and make them answerable for sending out mass intimidation letters without reasonable evidence. (Continued…)
Tyler
posted 4/16/07 @ 10:01 AM EST
I have never been more proud to attend this university. Of the thousands of institutions that have quietly given up their students as supposed criminals to the RIAA, we are almost completely unique in standing up to them. (Continued…)
TP
posted 4/17/07 @ 6:59 PM EST
Schools that have DHCP servers issuing dynamic IP addresses usually log every outgoing IP address. Granted the logs will be huge they should be able to sift through them and find out who was using what IP at what date / time. (Continued…)
Mortal Moxie
Mortal Moxie
posted 4/17/07 @ 7:01 PM EST
Schools that have DHCP servers issuing dynamic IP addresses usually log every outgoing IP address. Granted the logs will be huge they should be able to sift through them and find out who was using what IP at what date / time. (Continued…)
Baltimore Dave
posted 4/18/07 @ 2:40 AM EST
Make RIAA verify that the songs cost 750$ apiece. They can not. Take them to court and make them show how much they pay per song. RIAA will drop the case because they do not want the public to know how much they actually pay per song. (Continued…)
Jason
posted 4/26/07 @ 10:29 AM EST
Everytime I see something like this then look at the public reaction I just scratch my head. People are obtaining music and not paying for it. Downloading music online is stealing. (Continued…)
Goat-boy
posted 5/25/07 @ 12:07 PM EST
When this whole online music pirating thing started, I assumed that the Music Industry would actually do something constructive, such as lowering the price of a CD or stop producing bad music. (Continued…)
it pro
posted 5/26/07 @ 1:58 PM EST
if someone was using your computer as a proxy then the ip address will be your computer but the song will have been downloaded to somewhere else which makes you then responsible for the song because your computer was used as a proxy. (Continued…)
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