College Students Settle Suits With RIAA
College Students Settle Suits Filed by Recording Industry

By NICK WINGFIELD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Four university students sued by major recording companies for operating campus-wide programs that let users download music and other files have reached settlements under which they will each pay between $12,000 and $17,500 to the recording industry.

Under the terms of the separate settlements, the students, without admitting guilt in any of the recording industry's allegations, agreed to disable Web sites that allowed users at their respective schools to find songs and other files located on computers throughout their campus networks. The students, who were sued in federal courts in Michigan, New Jersey and New York last month, also agreed not to knowingly violate copyrights on sound recordings by using the Internet to distribute music.

Daniel Peng at Princeton University in New Jersey and Joseph Nievelt at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich., agreed to pay $15,000 to the recording companies, while Jesse Jordan and Aaron Sherman from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., agreed to pay $12,000 and $17,500 respectively. The students will make the payments on installment plans over the next several years.

The settlements resolve the first phase of what could be a risky legal gambit by the major record labels, including AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music Entertainment, Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group and Bertelsmann AG's BMG, to combat online music piracy, a phenomenon the labels blame for declining music sales. Recording industry executives said the lawsuits have resulted in at least 18 campus-wide file sharing networks being taken down, adding that they may ask for stiffer settlement terms in future legal actions.

"The message is clearly getting through that distributing copyrighted works without permission is illegal, can have consequences, and that we will move quickly and aggressively to enforce our rights," said Mathew Oppenheim, senior vice president of business and legal affairs at the Recording Industry Association of America.

But in suing individuals, particularly university students, analysts and attorneys believe the recording industry may risk alienating a wider swath of music fans.

"It's very unfortunate that the recording industry, in trying to protect their profits, has used the legal system to intimidate students who are often their best customers," said Howard Ende, an attorney at Drinker Biddle who represented Princeton's Mr. Peng.

While the recording industry alleged that the students were operating campus file-sharing networks modeled on Napster, representatives of the students said they did little more than run search engines akin to Google that let users find any kind of digital file, including songs. "He has never stolen anything," said Andy Jordan, the father of defendant Jesse Jordan.

Mr. Jordan added that his son's $12,000 settlement "happens to be the same amount of money that is the total of his bank account. That is money he has saved up over the course of working three years ... to save money for college." Messrs. Nievelt and Sherman didn't return calls for comment.

Suing individuals for sharing music, movies and other copyrighted material may become a more common legal tactic by the recording companies. Last week, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that two providers of file-sharing programs, StreamCast Networks Inc. and Groskter Ltd., aren't violating copyright laws with their software. The ruling, if it survives an expected appeal by movie studios and recording companies, could force media companies to concentrate their legal efforts on individual users, legal experts predict.

URL for the story: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB...9211800,00.html

___________________

" You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip
through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will-
ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert."