The University of Kansas recently received 14 pre-litigation settlement letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), to be forwarded to students for copyright infringement. University officials have refused to distribute the settlement letters, claiming that doing so would breach student privacy.
By forwarding the letters, the school would have to release the students’ names to the RIAA. The school insists that they will not act as a legal agent. Instead of passing out the actual letters, the school will disable Internet access for the 14 offenders.
The RIAA argues that the letters give the students a chance to settle copyright lawsuits outside of court at a discounted rate and that the University is doing the students a dis-service by not forwarding the letters.
In the past, the University allowed students three warnings about their illegal activity before getting their Internet privileges revoked. Since the RIAA has sent the letters, the school has adopted a zero tolerance policy when dealing with copyright infringement, where students lose Internet access after a first offense.
The music industry seems to be taking a new approach to caching offenders and explain that those who continue to illegally download music and ignore copyright laws will end up paying thousands in legal fees. The RIAA maintains that there are plenty of inexpensive ways to get music and that illegally downloading could end up being very costly in the long run.
The RIAA has recently sent a total of 408 letters to 23 colleges.
