RIAA Revs Up Lawsuit Campaign Even Higher

And The Legal Beat Goes On...

Despite rumors of potential solutions to the illegal file-sharing issue, the RIAA is ratcheting up its litigation campaign to an even higher level. The label lobby initially expanded its campaign against colleges in FEBRUARY 2007, where around 400 students at a time were notified of alleged digital piracy. Last week, however, it sent out 569 "pre-litigation settlement letters" to students in 26 universities, who were allegedly making their songs "available" for downloading. According to WIREDCAMPUS. COM, it's largest letter missive since the RIAA started revving up the campaign in FEBRUARY, 2007.

RIAA spokesman JONATHAN LAMY denied that the latest wave of letters was related to bills currently being debated in Congress that would revise copyright infringement penalties and university requirements for curbing on-campus file-sharing. RIAA spokeswoman CARA DUCKWORTH offered this list of targeted institutions and numbers of "offenders["

University of Texas at Austin, 75
University of Tennessee at Knoxville, 74
University of Washington, 36
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 35
Iowa State University, 32
Central Michigan University, 31
Columbia University, 26
University of Georgia, 26
Yale University, 26
University of Nebraska at Lincoln, 22
Cornell University, 21
University of California at Davis, 20
Drexel University, 19
Florida State University, 18
University of California at Santa Barbara, 18
University of Pennsylvania, 18
University of New Mexico, 15
Duke University, 14
University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, 12
University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, 9
University of California at Merced, 8
University of Wisconsin at Madison, 6
University of Wisconsin-Stout, 5
University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, 1
University of Wisconsin-Parkside, 1
University of Wisconsin at River Falls, 1

Several universities not listed have also reported definite increases in the number of letters they've received.

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