The Recording Industry Association of America has filed copyright-infringement lawsuits against 405 students at 18 colleges and universities around the country. Penn students, however, escaped this round.
The suits were a response to what the RIAA considers to be an emerging epidemic of music theft on Internet2, a high-speed network used by many universities.
"There are consequences for unlawful uses of this specialized network," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement. "We have built a strong relationship with university administrators in recent years, and our request to them now is to not let this incredible technology, Internet2, become a lawless zone where the rules don't apply."
The presidents of 140 other universities were notified by the RIAA that Internet2 infringements were occurring on their campuses. The names of these schools were not made public.
According to Sherman, the students who are being sued were selected because of the "egregiousness" of their infringements, as well as the fact that many of their schools had a large number of people sharing music.
"There was one user who was offering 13,600 MP3 files," Sherman said. "You can be sure that user became a target."
Sherman added that the students targeted by the lawsuits had an average of 3,900 illegal files, 2,300 of which were MP3 files. The minimum penalty for direct copyright infringement is $750 per infringed work, although serious offenders often settle for $3,500 to $4,500.
Harvard and Princeton were among the schools with students named in the lawsuits.
According to Harvard University spokesman Joe Wrinn, Harvard will not move to protect its students from the suits.
"Obey the law, or face, individually, the consequences for individual actions," Wrinn said.
Similarly, Princeton will not provide legal counsel to the 25 students targeted by the suits.
"The university has not yet received subpoenas from the RIAA, but we expect that they will arrive early next week and that we will comply with the subpoenas," Princeton University spokesman Eric Quinones said. "The university has made it clear to students that copyright infringement must be taken seriously."
Quinones added, however, that students seeking legal advice would be referred to recommended lawyers unaffiliated with Princeton.
During previous waves of RIAA legal action, several Penn students have been sued.
However, the name of only one of those students was ever turned over to the RIAA. The University said there was insufficient information to match Internet protocol addresses to a specific user in seven other cases.
Schools whose students were sued include Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Drexel University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Princeton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, UC San Diego, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Southern California.
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