The record industry’s massive crackdown on college students across the country is spiraling out of control

Since September 2003, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) has been on a witch hunt trying to sue all college students they can find who have been found guilty of illegally downloading thousands of songs on your I-Pods or hard drives throughout the United States. college campuses. This massive extortion of college students is the latest dying effort by an industry that has been in severe financial chaos for the past 10 years. They are now focusing on trying to get the children they have targeted in these efforts to pay the $3,000 needed to settle out of court, or the students will be taken to court and could face a lawsuit of more than $1.4 million.

Since March 2006, over 1,600 “pre-litigation” letters have been sent to a large number of college campuses across the country requesting that the college board of education forward these RIAA threatening letters to student dorms guilty, no matter how many students actually live in those rooms. This effort is nothing short of a scare campaign designed to strike terror into the hearts of all who come into contact with the legal documentation of the letter. Given that there is probably more than just one person in a bedroom who could be downloading illegally, how does the RIAA distinguish between computer users? RIAA attorneys say they can verify that in all of these cases, the accused student’s computer, username, and password were traced directly to the illegal downloads depicted in all of the individual lawsuits currently in court. Is this a true statement?

The problem is that we will never know because none of these cases will end up in federal court, since most of the attorneys for these students are afraid to take these cases to trial. They settle out of court for $3,000-$5,000 just so the college students can get back to doing what they’re supposed to do in college: study. This is a scare tactic that seems to be working for the RIAA, and they are not going to stop this horrible activity anytime soon, as long as it continues to send the same message to all college students currently attending school: We don’t care. . who are you. We will find your illegal downloads and prosecute you to the full extent of the law!

Meanwhile, statistics show that this petty judgment mentality is having the opposite effect on illegal downloads. Peer-to-peer song sharing has grown significantly, from 5.5 million monthly users in 2003 to more than 9.3 million in 2006, the exact time period in which the RIAA first began its lawsuit campaign. which has resulted in 18,000 lawsuits across the country.

The RIAA has responded to all the negative press it’s getting by saying that they have to take these extreme measures because college students are responsible for a disproportionate amount of illegal file-sharing activity. In fact, the RIAA has stated in the past that since colleges have been slow to take action on these matters, the RIAA has no choice but to sue guilty students for as much money as possible. The RIAA is now in the process of sending letters to college campuses listing the IP addresses of computers that the organization claims have been used in the illegal file-sharing cases they are working on, avoiding the lawsuit altogether if the student associated with the specific illegal downloads in question claims that, in fact, he will pay a large fine.

The RIAA even has a website set up for the student to log in and pay online to avoid any lawsuits they may face if they don’t agree to pay the $3,000-$5,000 fee. The five major college campuses that have been affected by this new campaign of letters specifying the exact IP addresses of computers that have been found complicit in illegal activities are:

1. Ohio University

2. Purdue University

3. University of Nebraska

4. University of Tennessee

5. University of South Carolina

So if you’re a student at one of these great campuses, you can expect to get a nice letter from the RIAA accusing you of the horrific act of illegal file sharing, and you’ll have to add the $3,000-plus fine to your already-due student loan payments. increasing. Who says there is justice in America?