Alyssa Kosturakis

Twenty days. That's how long the Recording Industry Association of America gave Lindsey, a College junior, to decide if she wanted to pay a little or a lot. After receiving a pre-litigation letter in mid-November from the RIAA accusing her of illegally downloading 1,927 songs, Lindsey - who asked that her real name be withheld for privacy reasons - had less than a month to research her options.

Alex Buder Shapiro is approaching graduation - but her days of playtime, recess and cafeteria food are far from over. The College senior is taking a job in human resources at Google. There, her playtime will be a game of pool with colleagues, recess will be climbing up an indoor rock wall and cafeteria food will be tapas at Cafe Pintxo.

Webmail's gone. There are no more server crashes. And another company is handling e-mail at no charge. It's the saga of Penn e-mail, but it's now the story of hundreds of other schools across the country. Penn made the decision to outsource its e-mail to Microsoft last year.

Facebook. Or "le livre de visage." Or maybe "das Angesichtbuch." Once the social-networking toy of American collegians, Facebook has since expanded globally. And with membership recently growing at astronomical rates in Europe and other parts of the world, users say the site has started to bridge a gap of oceanic proportions.

College sophomore Brandon Moyse never thought Buckcherry would get him into trouble. But when Moyse - who is also a DP sportswriter - opened his inbox last Friday, the rock band was the cause for a distressing e-mail: A message from the Recording Industry Association of America demanding that he remove one of the band's hit songs from his computer.

In an effort to target a population that school officials say has long failed to benefit from Penn's development, the University will start a program next month designed to give low-income Philadelphians skills to be successful in the trade industry. Earlier this year, Penn officials announced the start of the Lucien E.

Drexel University is set to seriously spruce up its library -and through a Web site, nonetheless. After receiving a grant of over $600,000 this month, Drexel has announced that it will turn the Internet Public Library - currently the largest free online collection and reference service accessible to anyone with the Internet - into an even more comprehensive online learning community.

Playboy - naked women, Hugh Hefner and, now, social networking. Playboy U, the new Web site backed by the storied men's magazine of the same name, launched to the public last month, promising parties, fun and - surprisingly - no nudity. The site, which is only open to college students, is much like Facebook, with student profiles that include user-generated photos, videos and blogs.

High illegal downloading rates and a whole network of young, powerless culprits to put the pressure on - for the Recording Industry Association of America, it seems that college students are the perfect criminals. The RIAA has pushed yet another onslaught of lawsuits against students over the last six months, with over 3,000 pre-litigation letters sent out to college campuses across the country.

Six of the 17 Penn students who were sent pre-litigation letters from the Recording Industry Association of America in April are still in hot water. The RIAA has decided to proceed with plans to sue those six students, who have not yet settled with the organization in face of allegations of illegal music downloading, RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said.