Two illegal music downloaders at Penn are officially off the hook.
The Recording Industry Association of America decided to drop its case against two anonymous individuals identified only by their Internet protocol addresses in a Dec. 16 lawsuit.
"We've dismissed our case without prejudice," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, RIAA senior vice president for legal affairs, referring to the fact that the case could legally be brought up again.
The decision comes in response to the University's Jan. 20 announcement that it had been unable to match the IP addresses to any specific users. The addresses are numbers assigned to uniquely identify users.
Insufficient records made it impossible to match the addresses to a name, University spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman said.
Had the University been notified sooner after the alleged downloading occurred, the information might have been recovered, she said.
"The subpoena was many months after the alleged infringement," Penn Associate General Counsel Robert Terrell said.
The University refused to provide any detailed information regarding its inability to find the two downloaders, leading to speculation that it was trying to thwart the RIAA. However, the University vehemently denies such allegations.
The two downloaders were among 754 sued on Dec. 16. Included in the suit were individuals at Columbia, Westchester, Widener and Old Dominion universities. Since then, the RIAA has also launched suits against downloaders at 32 other universities.
"College students are some of the most avid music fans. The music habits and customs they develop now are likely to stay with them for life," RIAA spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen said regarding her organization's policy of filing the mass lawsuits.
These are not the first RIAA lawsuits against individuals at Penn.
Six Penn downloaders were targeted in a March 2004 lawsuit. Only one of the six names was ever released to the RIAA, as the University claimed that there was not enough information to match the addresses.
Still, Penn is not the only university that has not cooperated with the RIAA. At Ohio University, where several students were sued, administrators ignored a letter warning of coming lawsuits against users at OU. The university only took action when served with a subpoena two months later.
Old Dominion University, which has also received lawsuits against several individuals, refuses to talk publicly about the cases.
The lawsuits put college administrators in a difficult position, wanting to protect their students but still having to uphold the law.
However, the RIAA has little sympathy for their predicament.
"The law is quite clear here: U.S. copyright law prohibits the unauthorized duplication, performance or distribution of a creative work, and we expect universities to act in accordance with the law," Engebretsen said.
