Read excerpt and answer questions below:

Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and College Students: Defending the Industry or Biting the Hand that Feeds You?

Going after illegal shareware companies is one thing, but going after music consumers, especially college students who represent the industry's largest and poorest market segment, may seem to be the equivalent of economic genocide. Yet "the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of its member record companies, has sent a new wave of 401 pre-litigation settlement letters to 12 universities citing individuals for online music theft via peer-to-peer services such as Ares, BitTorrent, Gnutella, LimeWire, and Morpheus. ... The pre-lawsuit letters, sent to individuals at more than 150 schools, are one piece of a multi-faceted industry campaign to encourage fans to enjoy music legally. Despite years of warnings, educational campaigns, and the availability of multiple legal options, online music theft, especially on campuses, remains a major problem for the music community and saps opportunities for investment in new bands."⁹⁷

Recipients of the letter have the opportunity to avoid a potential lawsuit by settling out of court for a reduced fee. "While the minimum fine for each copy-righted recording is $750 under the law, students who contact the RIAA before they file the lawsuit can pay a settlement fine of approximately $3,000, according to an e-mail from attorney Bruce Phil-lips of Student Legal Services at Virginia Tech."⁹⁸

Formal lawsuits have been filed against 2,465 letter recipients. These individuals either disregarded settlement opportunities or were not given the option to settle early because the university failed to forward the letters.⁹⁹Individuals who have not settled and been brought to court by the RIAA have paid huge fines. For example, a federal jury found Jammie Thomas-Rasset liable for file-sharing, dinging her $1.92 million for infringing 24 songs.¹⁰⁰Joel Tenenbaum was fined $675,000 for illegally downloading and distributing 30 copyrighted songs.¹⁰¹

How does the RIAA justify these harsh actions? "[In support of their policies and tactics, RIAA cites] a survey by Stu-dent Monitor found that more than half of college students download music and movies illegally. According to market research firm NPD, college students alone accounted for more than 1.3 billion illegal music downloads in 2006. Additionally, the Institute for Policy Innovation (www.ipi.org) estimated that the global theft of sound recordings cost the U.S. economy $12.5 billion in lost revenue and more than 71,000 jobs and $2 billion in wages to U.S. workers. 'One year into our legal campaign, we've seen an emerging legal marketplace that would have struggled to gain traction were it not for our efforts to clamp down on online music theft,' said Cara Duckworth, Director of Communications, RIAA. 'The exponential growth of illicit peer-to-peer file sharing has stabilized and music lovers know what they can and can't do when getting music online. This has fostered a climate that helps music companies earn a fair return so that they can invest in the next generation of artists and new bands can have a shot at realizing a dream. Unfortunately, too many students continue to ignore the law and get music from illegal services like Limewire that do not invest a penny in nurturing music or compensating the artists, labels, and the thousands of behind-the-scenes workers bringing music to the public. ... For those who choose to ignore all the content-rich alternatives and get music the wrong way, they run the risk of legal action, potential disciplinary enforcement from a university and crippling both their computer and the university network."¹⁰²

Questions

1.What is the issue that the RIAA is raising with college students, and how does it affect the industry it represents? Which role is RIAA utilizing to protect the industry?

2.What is the business activist strategy the RIAA is using to protect the music industry's interests? What additional strategies could it employ?

3.What options are available to college students and their universities for dealing with the RIAA's activist strategies?

4.If you were a college or university, would you take a proactive, defensive, or accommodating stance with the RIAA? Why?

5.If you received a pre-lawsuit letters from the RIAA how would you respond? Why?