Over the summer, the Recording Industry Association of America announced that it sent over 400 pre-litigation settlement notices to students across 23 different colleges and universities in mid-July. Of those 400, RPI received 20, for which five students were responsible.
The RIAA has been cracking down on music piracy over the past few years, and sending out pre-litigation notices is another step in attempting to affect a decline in piracy. In addition to those sent out in July, another batch—this one totaling 503 notices, none of which were for RPI—was sent out on August 16, targeting 58 more campuses across the United States, according to the RIAA’s website.
Once the RIAA has sent a pre-litigation notice to a campus, the colleges and universities can either choose to forward those letters to the party responsible or not. When RPI received these 20 notices over the summer, the administration chose the latter.
“We have chosen, for now, not to pass on these notices to the students. As of now, we believe that it was only five students that generated these notices,” said Vice President for Information Services and Technology and CIO John E. Kolb ’79.
In comparison to other universities, RPI was around the middle in terms of the number of notices sent. At the top of the RIAA’s list was the State University of New York at Morrisville, which received 34 notices, as well as Georgia Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania State University, which each received 31 notices.
Although the Institute received a median amount of notices, many of the other universities on the RIAA’s list were much larger than RPI—many of which are large public state universities.
In 2003, the RIAA filed lawsuits against four students, two of whom attended RPI. A total of 32 more students were sued by the RIAA in 2005, and this sparked the Student Senate, headed by Grand Marshal Max Yates ’06, to try for a solution: Ruckus. The major question being raised in response to these most recent notices is whether Ruckus has been successful in cutting down on music piracy.
“Ruckus was a great solution,” said Kolb. “It obviously cut down on the amount of pirating occurring on campus by the fact that notices were only sent to these five students. It was a great idea where students solved problems for students.”
“The amount of students getting notices since using Ruckus has gone down, which says that Ruckus is working,” said Grand Marshal Julia Leusner ’08, “but the program’s not always compatible with all of the operating systems students use. We are investigating other alternatives, but what’s nice about Ruckus is that it’s free, relatively easily accessible, and not too much of a hassle.” She also added, “I think students should definitely use Ruckus as opposed to downloading music illegally.”
According to Kolb, the RIAA can now either choose to pass on letters directly to students, or it can pursue legal means against them. “RPI will respond to legal processes, but it’s not our business to pass on these notices,” said Kolb.
