by Bryan Gibel
Daily Lobo
The Recording Industry Association of America filed lawsuits on May 17 against 16 unidentified UNM network users suspected of illegally downloading music on the Internet, according to a news release from the association.
The association monitors the Internet for illegal music sharing and logs the IP addresses of violators.
It has to subpoena Internet providers, such as ITS, to identify who the addresses belong to.
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The lawsuits were filed using the IP addresses.
The association can use the "John Doe" lawsuits to subpoena the University for the names of the network users being investigated, but is yet to do so, said Richard Mertz, a lawyer for UNM.
"It can take quite a while sometimes before they get the subpoenas out," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see something next week, but on the other hand, it might be a month."
The association will contact the users named in the lawsuits to discuss settling out of court, according to the release.
Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the association, didn't give a timetable for further legal action.
Lamy said the association will "move expeditiously" on the
lawsuits.
In early May, the association asked UNM to keep the network records for four more users suspected of illegally downloading, Mertz said.
The association sent 16 pre-lawsuit letters to UNM on April 11.
The notices went to ITS, which forwarded them to the people whose IP addresses the association identified as being suspected of illegally downloading music, Moira Gerety, director of ITS, said in a Daily Lobo article published May 2.
Users who received a letter could have settled with the association for a total of $2,500 to $3,500, Gerety said.
Mertz said the accused users will have to pay more money to settle out of court now that litigation has been formally filed.
"Now that they've filed a lawsuit, but haven't named an individual, that settlement might be $4,000," he said.
If a case goes to court, the record companies can sue for between $750 and $150,000 per song, Mertz said.
Mertz said network users may not know they are breaking the law, but they can still be held liable.
"You don't have to know you were doing anything wrong," he said. "The $150,000 is the upper end for willful infringement - if you knew what you were doing. But the $750 is whether you knew it was wrong or not."
Josh Hale, a sophomore at UNM, said the recording industry shouldn't prosecute students for so much money.
"I don't think its right for (the association) to sue them for such a ridiculous amount of money," he said. "It's not like students have extra money around at their disposal."
Steven Marks, general counsel and executive vice president for the RIAA, said the association must take Internet copyright infringement seriously.
"Our ability to invest in new brands and new music is seriously threatened by online theft - a problem that remains particularly acute on college campuses," he said in a statement. "Individuals need to understand that there are consequences for their actions."
UNM responded to several hundred copyright infringement notices that have been filed since last fall, Mertz said.
Most notices do not threaten legal action, he said.
The notices request that UNM delete the IP addresses of computers with illegal content from the network, he said.
"The University has removed a large number of IP addresses in response to these notices," he said. "They can get back on the network after their machine is cleaned up. They're also given information on copyright and the issues in what they're doing."
The lawsuits filed on May 17 represent a new approach in the recording industry's attempt to curb illegal music sharing on university networks, Mertz said.
The association may file lawsuits more often if people do not respond to the notices and pre-lawsuit letters, he said.
"We don't know where it will go from here," he said. "It could become a common thing, which is sort of a chilling thought. I'm sure it's quite a traumatic thing to receive a notice from the RIAA about the possibility of being sued. It's kind of a new era in enforcement by the copyright owners."
