Students don't fear file swapping despite possible stiff penalties

By Tamara Smith

Anyone who hasn’t heard that downloading free music off the Internet is illegal must be spending too much time in cyberspace.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been seeking revenge against file-sharers, on which the music industry is blaming the recent three-year decline of album sales.

Lawsuits against college students accused of trading copyrighted songs named students at Michigan Technological University, Princeton University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY) who ran Napster-like file-sharing services on their campus computer networks.

The damages sought in the suits are $150,000 per song, the maximum allowed by law.

Sukahan Nawaz, a Fresno State sophomore business student, admits to downloading music for free off the Internet. “It seems pretty harmless,” she said.

Music lovers who want assurance they will not be the target of a lawsuit are invited to sign up for the RIAA’s amnesty program. To qualify, the repentant file-sharer must sign an agreement promising to delete any illegally obtained music files and swear never to do it again.

Those who choose to do this have been told they will not be sued by the RIAA, association president Cary Sherman said.

Sherman said the program would be an honor system, and those who come forward will not be regularly monitored and their personal information will be kept private.

People are not required to remove file-sharing software from their computer to be eligible for the amnesty program, but Sherman said it is the best way to ensure that files are not accidentally shared again.

Afton Rezac, a Fresno State computer lab assistant said most computers in on-campus labs won’t allow file sharing. She does her downloading at home.

“ We have a no-tolerance policy when it comes to file sharing and downloading. If students are caught, then they will be asked to leave the lab,” Rezac said.

Any student not following this policy in an on-campus computer lab will be asked to leave immediately, according to posted signs.

In a press release, the RIAA said it has gone through about 900 subpoenas so far. Anyone caught violating its rules may be fined anywhere from $750 to $150,000 for each downloaded song.

Arnido Aranico Jr., a fifth-year Fresno State student studying English, said he has more than 200 songs stored on his computer. Multiply that by the amount of money the RIAA could possibly receive for each song, and it equals one expensive music collection.

Aranico, who said he downloaded these songs through a program called WinMx during the past few months, has never made any compact discs using these songs.

“ I do buy certain CDs, but if I want one song, I don’t want to have to pay for the whole CD, especially if I don’t like the rest of it,” Aranico said.

If students don’t want to be one of hundreds sued by giant music companies in federal courts around the country, they may want to consider a legal file-sharing option.

Napster, a once-controversial file-sharing program, was re-released earlier this month. The new version of Napster, 2.0, offers consumers downloads for 99 cents per song or $9.95 per album.

An alternative to Napster, iTunes, plays on Macintosh and Windows operating systems in addition to iPods. An iPod is a digital music player that can hold up to 10,000 songs, thousands of digital photos and can record voice. The iTunes Music Store lets browsers quickly find, purchase and download the music for 99 cents per song. You can also burn songs onto an unlimited number of CDs for your personal use—all legally.

Many Fresno State students continue to disregard the news of college students across the country being sued and fined for what they do with their computers after class. The idea that “it won’t happen to me” appears frequently on campus at Fresno State, according to students interviewed.

Others, however, still don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

“ Most artists are rich and have more money than they probably ever will need. I’m sure they really don’t miss too much of it,” Nawaz said.