The recording industry sent letters threatening lawsuits to 408 file sharers at 23 schools in mid July as part of its continuing campaign against college music sharers.
Two of those universities are in Ohio and neither has received such letters before, leaving both in the same situation Ohio University faced in February. Ohio State University received 19 pre-litigation settlement letters and Case Western Reserve University received 12.
Each letter identifies a network user by the Internet Provider address they used to share copyrighted music through Limewire or Ares, two popular peer-to-peer programs. Universities are asked to match those IP addresses to individual users and forward the letters, which ask that the recipient pay $3,000 to settle out of court within 40 days.
Case spokeswoman Lisa Chiu said last week that the university has not decided what to do with the 12 letters it received and didn't know if Case sponsored a free music service for students or if the university had put in place measures to stop copyright infringement on its network.
The university's official statement on the letters is vague, saying that the university is in the process of reviewing the notices and will determine an appropriate response within its campus community.
Ohio State decided to forward the 19 letters it received, but ran into two problems. One of the IP addresses provided by the recording industry doesn't appear to exist on the OSU network.
You can give me any 12 numbers
sometimes its going to be an address sometimes its not said Bob Kalal, director of information technology policy at OSU. He added, chuckling, that the university can't find the user of an IP address that doesn't exist.
Two more of the letters turned out to be identical, reducing the total number of letters forwarded to OSU network users to 17. The repeat letter was one of nine traced to the ResNet network that serves students living on campus, said Valerie Shafer, director of IT for the office of student affairs.
Both Kalal and Shafer made it clear that sharing copyrighted files is against the university's acceptable use policy.
On a campus as large as Ohio State
I think we will undoubtedly experience a handful of students who won't follow laws or obey policy
said Jim Lynch, director of media relations. I think that most of the students are following the university's acceptable use policy.
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Dave Hendricks
