2008 to Present Day

In March of 2007, RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol announced the organization’s enforcement efforts against copyright infringements would shift focus to campus file sharers. They began by sending out 400 prelitigation settlement letters to 13 universities coupled with letters sent directly to the respective institution’s presidents asking for their cooperation. In addition to these notices, the RIAA created a website called p2plawsuits.com where individuals who had received the letters could contact the RIAA and negotiate settlements before any lawsuits were even filed. Today, however, the website seems to be completely defunct; it is not being maintained and has failed to load on the last several times I have tried to access it. Besides using the threat of litigation, the RIAA has made a few suggestions to universities about how to nip campus file sharing in the bud, including proper education on copyright infringement, implementing technological measures to prevent file sharing, and providing an inexpensive alternative for sharing music to students like Ruckus. [1] Preliminary surveys of such services on campus have found that students are not embracing the alternate services, even when universities make the service available to students completely free of charge.[2]

Because the university acts like any other Internet Service Provider (IPS) like Verizon, the process for extracting the identity of campus file sharers is fundamentally similar to process of peer to peer file sharers at large. The infringer is first identified by their IP address, and the university receives a letter addressed to the unknown user of the IP address and is expected to identify the correct student and forward on the letter. If that happens, then the infringer can take whatever course of action they think best: contact the RIAA to settle or not and face a lawsuit. If the university does not cooperate or the student chooses not to, then the RIAA proceeds with a John Doe lawsuit and uses the full power of the usual discovery process to gain the identifying information and proceed into court.[3] After one year, has the RIAA’s efforts paid off? According to RIAA President Cary Sherman, the numbers are large at least: more than 5,400 letters were sent to universities which resulted in settlements out of court in roughly half the cases. Most settlements were for $3,000, which translates to almost $7 million dollars, but also almost 2,500 lawsuits that took their time wandering through the court system.[4] At the one year anniversary of the campus campaign, the return seems to be lukewarm but not as overwhelming as the RIAA had hoped. Nonetheless, Sherman forecasts this is just the beginning.

By April of 2008, universities began noticing a marked increase in the numbers of notices they are receiving from the RIAA. George Washington University, for instance, had been receiving approximately 10 notices per week, but claimed to have received 123 notices in one week alone.[5] While Cara Duckworth, RIAA Spokesperson, says that the RIAA has not changed their procedures for issuing the infringement notices, she did hint that the RIAA is improving their technological means for detecting infringement in the first place. University IT officials are concerned about the extra workload the RIAA’s notices places on their staff, who need to address each and every letter individually. Universities are generally responsive and helpful to the RIAA’s battle against peer-to-peer networks, but some like the University of Oregon have begun challenging the “unduly burdensome” notices which are placing strain on their resources.[6] Despite the RIAA’s promise to continue to pursue enforcement measures as long as the market demands it, the end result has been mixed. Some figures show that peer-to-peer usage is leveling off, but traffic on sites like Limewire and BitTorrent, which allows a user to share an entire album at a time, is up.[7]

After another 6 months of the same tactics and with a few notable mishaps under their belt (like when the RIAA filed suit against a deceased grandmother[8]), the RIAA took a different approach to enforcing their copyrights. Rather than continuing to take individuals to court, which many critics called a public relations nightmare for the RIAA, the trade industry organization has struck “graduated response” agreements with many of the major American ISPs.[9] Instead of notices to universities or lawsuits against individuals exposed through subpoenas for identifying information in John Doe cases, the RIAA will notify the ISP of a suspected infringer. The ISP will then become responsible in turn for notifying their user, and in the end may need to block their subscriber access to their network for repeated offenses. This saves the RIAA the expense of legal actions, and also means that personal identifying information about end users is not being turned over to the RIAA. At the time, this new approach seems like a win-win solution: the RIAA continues to curb illegal file sharing without dragging people through public trials and ISPs no longer have to face the issue of turning over identifying information about their customers to an outside group and can take steps to preserve the fair usage of their bandwith, since file sharers typically hog bandwith in the interest of uploading and downloading files. There was even some talk about making voluntary campus-wide music licenses available to universities, seen as some as an olive branch offering after years of persistent legal attacks on consumers, universities, and students.[10]

That announcement came in December of 2008. Now that it is July of 2009, has the RIAA stuck to its word and worked with ISPs to end peer-to-peer file sharing practices? It seems that no, they have not. The RIAA has pursued legal action against those whose cases were detected in the past, even if the filing itself is more recent and looks to be a new lawsuit. While some decry the RIAA as hypocrites, the RIAA claims they have no choice but to press forward.[11] What is the current status of RIAA efforts? According to a recent posting on the Ars Technica Tech Policy blog, the total figures on the RIAA’s lawsuits are unclear and inconsistent. Electronic Frontier Foundation’s attorney Fren von Lohmann estimated upwards of 35,000 filings by the RIAA, while the trade industry group cited 18,000 people in a recent federal court filing.[12] Why the discrepancy? The RIAA claims it is because some people were sued twice: once as a John Doe and once after their identity had been unveiled. The bottom line is that the legality of peer-to-peer file sharing is still facing vigorous litigation by the RIAA, and while some are standing up to Goliath like Tanya Andersen,[13] many more are settling before it gets to court. Important precedents are being set, and we will all need to keep a watchful eye on the decisions coming out of federal districts nationwide. With advancement in technologies that allow for tracking file sharers, anonymity of the World Wide Web is disappearing, and using shared terminals at campuses will not necessarily prevent the RIAA from coming knocking at your door.

Stay tuned for future developments.


[1] Bangeman, Eric. 2007. RIAA launches propaganda, lawsuit offensive against college students. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/03/8953.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[2] Fisher, Ken. 2005. Students nap for Napster. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/08/5179.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[3] Bangeman, Eric. 2008. Pass or fail? RIAA?s college litigation campaign turns one. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/02/riaa-college-lawsuit-anniversary.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[4] Ibid.

[5] Young, Jeffrey R. 2008. Recording industry steps up campus-piracy alerts, straining college technology offices. Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/free/2008/04/2668n.htm (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[6] Bangeman, Eric. 2008. Campuses swimming in flood of infringement notices from RIAA. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/04/campuses-swimming-in-flood-of-infringement-notices-from-riaa.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[7] Ibid.

[8] Bangeman, Eric. 2005. The RIAA gets overzealous again in its battle against file sharing. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/02/4587.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[9] Anderson, Nate. 2008. No more lawsuits: ISPs to work with RIAA, cut off P2P users. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/12/no-more-lawsuits-isps-to-work-with-riaa-cut-off-p2p-users.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[10] Anderson, Nate. 2008. Voluntary campus-wide music licenses could stop the lawsuits. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/12/voluntary-campus-wide-music-licenses-could-stop-the-lawsuits.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[11] Anderson, Nate. 2009. RIAA: "we have no choice" but to file more named lawsuits. Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/riaa-we-have-no-choice-but-to-file-more-named-lawsuits.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[12] Anderson, Nate. 2009. Has the RIAA sued 18,000 people... or 35,000? Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/has-the-riaa-sued-18000-people-or-35000.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).

[13] Bangeman, Eric. 2008. Andersen attorney on RIAA suit: "They can't run now.” Ars Technica. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/03/andersen-attorney-on-riaa-suit-they-cant-run-now.ars (Accessed on July 19, 2009).