RIAA Sues Every College Student in America

The RIAA has sent another wave of pre-litigation settlement letters to universities this week for its member labels. Another 401 letters went to administrators of 12 universities, who were asked to forward them to the individuals associated with certain specified IP addresses.

Recipients of the letters have the opportunity to avoid a potential copyright infringement lawsuit by settling out of court for a reduced fee. Formal lawsuits have been filed against 2,465 letter recipients since the campaign first began last year, according to the RIAA. These individuals either chose to not settle the claim or were not given the option to settle early because the university failed to forward the letters. Of the 5,005 letters sent in prior rounds, the RIAA has reached settlements with more than 2,300 of those individuals. The letters cite individuals for online music theft over the universities' computer networks via peer-to-peer services such as Ares, BitTorrent, Gnutella, Limewire and Morpheus.

The RIAA’s 13th wave of letters went to the following colleges:

Boston University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters)

Columbia University (50)

Drexel University (33)

Indiana University (40)

North Carolina State University (35)

Ohio State University (30)

Purdue University (28)

Tufts University (20)

University of Maine System (32)

University of New Hampshire (32)

University of Southern California (50)

University of Virginia (16)

Down with The Man,

Josh

RIAA Looks To Own You and the Rest of the World

In a move that I just can't seem to wrap my head around, the RIAA has turned its unwanted attention upon the very people the group exists to protect. The RIAA is now pressing to lower the royalty payments made to musicians and artists for music tracks sold digitally. Artists are presently entitled to 13% of WHOLESALE, but the RIAA believes they should only receive 9%.

After years of PR that tried to convince the populace the RIAA is trying to stamp out piracy to protect musicians, the group has now made it blatantly clear the only individuals it aims to protect are those in charge of the major music labels, a group of aged executives who have massively failed to shepherd their businesses into the digital age. Now that the existence of both the RIAA and the major labels benefits neither musicians nor consumers, we can only hope that their decline has reached the critical mass that will drag them under the wheels of technologic progress and into the graveyard of history. Also read about the RIAA's plan to raise illegal downloading penaties to $1.5 Million per album!

Saving my pennies for a good lawyer,

Josh