Pause the song and check those LimeWire settings.

For the past four years, the Recording Industry Association of America has been cracking down on illegal file sharing on college campuses, including at Northwestern, where more than a dozen students were accused of copyright infringement this summer.

Some students, as well as an NU staff member who was fired for illegal file sharing, say the university needs to be more active in helping those who are caught. And as a Minnesota woman Tuesday became the first to take the RIAA to court, some private lawyers hope her case will show others there’s an alternative to paying the $3,000 settlement the RIAA first offers – the option university officials see as easiest and cheapest.

REWIND: MAKING NOISE

In June, the RIAA sent letters to 19 universities notifying them that computer users on their campuses had been sharing music illegally. NU alerted 16 students that the RIAA would file charges if the accused students did not accept a $3,000 settlement within 30 days.

Some students around the country, including one at NU, did not settle, opting instead to fight against the RIAA.

Ray Beckerman, a New York-based lawyer who works on copyright infringement cases, said students need to know that settling is not their only option. Although about 26,000 people have been accused of illegal file sharing over the past four-and-a-half years, they don’t have to end up “feeding this (RIAA) monster,” Beckerman said.

Play: facing the music

When anyone settles with the RIAA, he or she is forced into a non-negotiable agreement, Beckerman said.

A SESP sophomore told The Daily last week that he felt pressured to settle.

“Obviously you’re not going to court for it because it’s just ridiculous,” he said. “You’re just forced to pay $3,000.”

But $3,000 is too large a price to pay, Beckerman said, adding that those who settle still can be sued by other record companies.

“Every settlement is … adding fuel to the fire,” Beckerman said. “They make money on settlements and lose money when people fight back.”

Lawyer Wendy Seltzer, who spoke about resisting “copyright bullies” at Cornell University last week, said while the RIAA attempts to charge $750 per file, the retail price for a song is just 99 cents. Beckerman said the wholesale price of a song is only 70 cents.

But Cara Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman stressed that the settlement fee of $3,000 was a discount compared to the $750 per file students could be forced to pay in court.

Even still, Beckerman insisted the RIAA’s whole theory is “bogus” since it cannot prove that the computer owner actually is using the computer at the time of the download.

STOP: SOUNDING OFF

But policies at some schools are not in sync with Beckerman’s views.

At University of California-Davis, which received 34 letters from the RIAA, the computer’s owner is responsible for whatever happens on it, said Jan Carmikle, the school’s intellectual property officer in the office of research.

Even with these defenses, having to go to trial is too much of a burden for some.

A Medill junior who received a pre-litigation letter said the RIAA found about 200 illegally downloaded songs from LimeWire, a peer-to-peer sharing network.

The student agreed to pay a $3,000 settlement fee in six $500 installments, but not before evaluating the alternatives, consulting with lawyers and concluding that it would be “more expensive to try to fight it.”

The student said it was cheaper to settle after the first letter, because the RIAA continues to increase the settlement fee until, ultimately, a trial ensues. And that’s not an idle threat, Carmikle said.

“Being the test case and fighting them can be really expensive, and most of us don’t have the money to do that – and that’s part of what the RIAA is banking on,” she said.

The first RIAA copyright infringement case went to trial this week in Duluth, Minn. The 30-year-old defendant claims she was wrongfully accused.

Pause: TUNING in, TUNING OUT

When students choose not to settle, there are other matters to deal with, specifically students’ rights. Beckerman said while a university shouldn’t be entirely responsible for defending students from copyright infringement, they should be doing more to protect students’ rights.

After students choose not to settle, the RIAA goes to court to require NU to connect the offending IP addresses with names. During this process, which may take months, Beckerman said universities should inform students that the RIAA may obtain their names, so they can prepare themselves with a lawyer and a defense.

“The only thing students find out is that there’s been a case in court going on for several months,” he said. “And they have to go to a judge who’s already made up his mind.”

But John Calkins, NU’s assistant general counsel, said the university does protect students’ rights, because the school will only release names if the RIAA presents a valid subpoena for that information. If the university does not comply with the subpoena, it would “be in hot water with the court and potentially subject to contempt of court or other sanctions,” he said.

In the case of the NU student who did not accept the settlement, the university only found out the student’s identity last week, Calkins said.

Rewind: OPENING TRACK

Although this was the first time NU received pre-litigation letters from the RIAA, it is not the first time NU has dealt with copyright infringement.

In 2001, an NU staff member, who asked not to be identified in order to avoid jeopardizing current job standing, was temporarily terminated after the university received a letter stating that the staff member violated copyright infringements. Eight gigabytes of illegal mp3 files were found on the offending computer – between 1,500 and 2,000 songs.

However, at least half of those songs were uploaded from a personal CD collection, the staff member said.

“I was never clear on what exactly I had done wrong – never shown or given any copyright infringement information,” said the staffer, who still works at NU. “I asked many questions and the university did not answer them.”

At the time, the university was contacted by media outlets that were interested in exposing the story, the NU staffer said.

The staff member thought the negative press the university was receiving was one of the motives for NU to rehire.

FAST FORWARD: SINGING A DIFFERENT TUNE

After paying in July, the SESP sophomore said he will no longer use LimeWire, or any other file-sharing program.

“I got rid of it all completely just because I pretty much paid all the money I made this summer so I don’t want to deal with it again,” he said.

The Medill junior said using LimeWire is no longer worth the risk, and NU should be more willing to offer advice to others facing similar consequences.

“No one from the university said a word (about helping me),” the student said.

Still, Calkins said each person’s case is independent, and any number of the students could have chosen to fight the RIAA rather than settle.

“It’s an individual call on each case,” Calkins said. “I think each of those 16 people made his or her own decision.”

Reach Emily Glazer at [email protected].