The Recording Industry Association of America has recently sent a number of Duke students "Notification of Copyright Infringement Claims"-essentially the legal form of sending an intimidating thug with a baseball bat to collect money.
These letters offer students the option of settling out of court for $4,000 or of facing the daunting possibility of paying $750 per shared song plus lawyer fees. For a mere 500 songs, a student is looking at paying about $400,000.
However, what upsets me more is that Duke is continuing its pattern of abandoning its students. Whereas in the past, Duke has promised to help defend and shield its students from the prying arms of the recording industry, it is now betraying this promise. Some of my friends, having received only one Office of Information Technology warning, immediately complied and deleted their entire downloaded library. Apparently that was not enough to convince OIT to protect them against the predations of the recording industry. Duke University owes its students better.
Adam Zell
Trinity '08
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