RIAA sues UCLA member

One individual from UCLA was among 757 nationwide targeted by
the recording industry’s latest round of lawsuits against
illegal file sharing, which were filed Thursday and include users
at 17 different college campuses.

The “John Doe” lawsuit contains only the alleged
infringer’s IP address, and marks the sixth time a user of
UCLA’s network has been sued by the Recording Industry
Association of America ““ which represents thousands of
artists ““ for illegal distribution of copyrighted music.

The RIAA announced similar lawsuits against seven UCLA students
in May, but only submitted subpoenas for the names of five users,
said Kent Wada, director of information technology policy at
UCLA.

Wada said it was not clear whether Thursday’s lawsuit was
directed at a student, staff or faculty member ““ just that
the user was on the UCLA network ““ but said it was extremely
likely that the alleged copyright infringer is a student.

Other affected universities include UC Berkeley and UC San
Diego.

Jenni Engebretsen, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, said those named
in the lawsuits filed Thursday, as in previous lawsuits, were
individuals who engaged in “massive” file sharing. She
did not comment on whether the RIAA was looking on specific campus
networks for copyright infringers.

“Students are some of the most avid music fans,” she
said. “The habits they develop in college are likely to stick
with them for life, so we feel it is especially important to
educate students about the law, the value of copyrighted works and
the consequences that come with the theft of online
music.”

Engebretsen said the UCLA user was using software called i2hub,
which operates on the high-speed Internet2 network on campus. More
than 560 users of the Internet2 network, which is primarily located
on college campuses, have been sued by the recording industry,
according to the RIAA.

Thursday’s lawsuits bring the total number of individuals
sued by the RIAA to more than 14,800 since the industry’s
legal campaign began in September 2003.

“Those who continue to engage in this online theft pose a
direct threat to the music community’s ability to invest in
new bands and the new music that fans want to hear,” said
RIAA President Cary Sherman in a press release. “These
lawsuits are an important part of our defense against that
threat.”

Now, the university will await a subpoena from the RIAA to
obtain the name of the alleged infringer.

Wada said his main reaction to the notice of Thursday’s
lawsuit was one of disappointment, given the efforts UCLA
administrators have taken to educate students about illegally
trading copyrighted files.

Administrative actions include sending e-mail notifications
about the law and enacting a quarantine system that isolates
infringers from the campus network until the offending files are
removed.

“Everything that we’ve done to date is to try and
help students prevent getting to the point where they’re
going to be sued,” Wada said. “Once that happens, we
really have no ability to help.”

Wada said UCLA gets many more claims of infringement from the
RIAA ““ essentially “cease and desist” orders
““ than lawsuits. The university puts the accused students in
quarantine until the infringement claims have been resolved.

The continued lawsuits from the RIAA don’t necessarily
mean UCLA’s methods to deal with file sharing on campus
aren’t working, Wada said.

“(The quarantine system is) not perfect, but we believe
just in looking at the numbers … that the number of claims of
copyright infringement we’ve received has gone significantly
down,” he said.

Recently, the University of California has been moving toward
offering legal music providers to its campuses, hoping to help curb
illegal file sharing.

Judy Lin, a UCLA spokeswoman, said a group of faculty,
administrators and students has formed to investigate offering
legal music services to UCLA students at discounted rates.

The university will meet with representatives from several
services, including Cdigix and Apple’s iTunes, in the coming
weeks to discuss technical details and decide on what services, if
any, will be offered, Lin said.