College Students Sued for Music Downloads

Illegally downloading music has hard consequences for college students today, as RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is cracking down on campuses. Sarah Barg, a sophomore at University of Nebraska, had to pay a 3,000 dollar settlement for downloading 381 songs or face being sued. She is one of 61 students at Nebraska caught, but there are more than 60 other colleges across the country that have students being sued. This new aggressive policy towards illegally downloading music is taking aim at college students to stem the ingrained habits of downloading and sharing music on campus. Making an example of a few and frightening the rest, these scare tactics are yet to be proven effective but most likely have stemmed those caught from illegally acquiring music on-line. But will it prevent the rest from illegally acquiring copyrighted music?

Sadly, this new policy is striking at pockets already emptied--college students. Andrew Johnson, a freshman at Nebraska, settled out of court for downloading music illegally: 100 songs. He had to pay 3,000 dollars, too, had to dip into his college fund to pay for it, and he will be working three jobs this summer to pay for the damages done to his finances. Sources say that at least 500 students across the nation have paid settlements to keep from being sued. So, will illegal downloads stop across campuses? Earlier this year, Congress sent a letter out to university officials that inquired about their anti-piracy policies. That letter said that more than half of college students are downloading music and movies illegally. According to the letter sent, Congress wants the information from the schools to assess whether or not action needs to be taken on legislation to make sure that illegally downloading "is no longer commonly associated with student life on some U.S. campuses".

So, gone are the days that students share music? Are these days gone as the mix-tape has gone the way of the dinosaur? Will college students find other ways to acquire their music illegally? Johnson says that people he knows still download music and share it illegally, even after learning of his being caught. He says, "People are still going to do it until they get caught, and they can't catch everyone." Rebellious attitudes on college campuses are nothing new. The record industry may not be able to change the attitudes of college students, but they are using the money from the settlements to pay for education in schools and other groups about the hard consequences of music sharing. There are programs like these that will be targeted at students as young as third grade. Is the music industry hoping to have the same success as the "This is your brain--this is your brain on drugs" commercials? And what exactly will the long term effects be for the music industry, as they target a large portion of their market with law suits?