Several colleges continue to receive pre-lawsuit letters monthly from the Recording Industry Association of America, including Marshall University.
After receiving 331 violations during 2006-2007, up from 154 violations that occurred from 2005-2006, Marshall received a notice on Monday about a student recently committing a violation, said Steve Hensley, dean of Student Affairs.
Twelve colleges received letters in February about violations for illegal downloading. Six of those colleges were also included in the top 25 music-pirating colleges released in February 2007, according to the RIAA Web site.
Marshall ranked number 25 on the list of top violators during 2006-2007 and received letters for 331 violations. The number of violations made by Marshall students more than doubled from the 154 violations made from 2005-2006, according to the RIAA Web site.
According to the RIAA Web site, Marshall received pre-lawsuit letters last year in February, March, July and August.
Although the Motion Pictures Association of America and gaming companies are cracking down on people illegally downloading movies and games, the RIAA has been consistently sending out pre-lawsuit letters for the past year, Hensley said.
A spokeswoman for RIAA said an independent study based on global music piracy and the effect it has on the U.S. economy found that the music industry loses $12.5 billion.
There are three steps the RIAA takes against violators, said Hensley. The first step is to let the college know about a student committing violations and allow the college to notify the student and have them remove the program, such as Limewire, Kazaa and other file sharing programs.
The second step is to negotiate a settlement offer to the student and ask that they pay a fine. For Marshall students, this fine has been between $3,000 and $4,000, Hensley said. The third step is to take the violator to federal court if they choose not to pay the settlement.
"Who knows how that would end up," Hensley said about students going to federal court.
Students are risking the chance to have to pay a large amount of money and face federal court charges, he said.
"We haven't notified RIAA of names yet," Hensley said. Authorities at Marshall are waiting until the court tells them to give up the names, he said.
In September 2007, RIAA released a statement confirming that 24 copyright infringement lawsuits had been filed against colleges that failed to settle cases. Marshall was one of the schools included in these lawsuits.
"I don't think any of (the current violations) have gone through the full process," Hensley said.
Students that download music illegally not only face consequences in federal court, but also academic consequences.
"It is a violation of the code of conduct," Hensley said.
If it is a first offense, it will be noted but if the offenses continue, students may face more consequences through Judicial Affairs.
Students caught downloading material illegally, will have their Internet connection disabled and will have to pay a fee to have it turned back on, Hensley said.
"Music piracy is not a victimless crime," said the RIAA spokeswoman.
The violations are an annoyance to more than just student violators. The campus is already short of staff and for computer services to continue searching for who the violators are is a big task, Hensley said.
The overall effect of music piracy also causes 75,000 jobs to be lost each year and a loss of $2.5 billion, which would fund these jobs, the RIAA spokeswoman said.
"Every student that I have talked to knows it's illegal," Hensley said.
Whitney Johnson can be contacted at johnson253@marshall.edu.
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