San Jose Mercury News
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/5768232.htm
The recording industry has settled lawsuits against four students it accused of creating and operating Napster-like file-trading networks on campus.
The Recording Industry Association of America agreed Thursday to settlements of $12,000 to $17,500 apiece to be paid over four years, saying the case was intended to discourage unauthorized music downloading on campus -- not financially devastate the individual students. The suits initially sought penalties of up to $150,000 per pirated song.
``The goal here was not to extract blood from a stone but to send a clear and dramatic message to college students throughout the country,'' said Sheldon E. Steinbach, general counsel for the American Council on Education, which has been working with universities to address campus piracy. ``Certainly, sums of even that magnitude will make the point clearly.''
The cases, filed April 2, accused the students of exploiting academic resources to illicitly trade as many as a million songs without permission from the labels or artists.
Princeton University sophomore Daniel Peng and the three other students accused of contributing to copyright infringement -- Jesse Jordan and Aaron Sherman of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Joseph Nievelt of Michigan Technological University -- admitted no wrongdoing. Each agreed to remove the file-swapping Web sites they created and to never again download or distribute bootlegged copies of songs.
Peng's attorney said his 18-year-old client is relieved to have put the lawsuit behind him so that he can once again concentrate on his academic career.
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