Recording Studio Students
Nearly 7,000 music recording studio students who have a university e-mail account signed up to use the service, and the university recently announced that those students downloaded 1 million songs so far this semester. On average, USF students download about 10,700 songs off Ruckus a day.
However, there's a catch: Although the songs are free, the music cannot run on Apple's ubiquitous iPod. It's free to listen to the music on the computer, but songs can only run on another portable media player if students pay Ruckus a $20 fee every semester. A Ruckus spokesman, Tim Hurley, wouldn't say how many USF students pay the fee, but conceded that the number is low.
Over the coming months, Pearce said that USF will watch how these new measures will affect students' behavior and launch more stringent policies, if necessary.
In that time, the number of lawsuits against USF students likely will rise. So far, the recording industry has filed 54 "John Doe" lawsuits against USF students. A "John Doe" lawsuit enables the record labels to file a complaint with the federal court in Tampa and later subpoena the student by name.
To date, only one student has been named as a defendant, Austin Dudley of USF. Record labels including Sony BMG Music Entertainment have accused Dudley, 20, of illegally downloading and sharing 578 songs online.
Dudley denied downloading that many songs. After he received the letter offering a $3,000 settlement, his mother, Prenzial Dudley, said there was no negotiating with the recording industry.
His parents, knowing others had access to Dudley's computer in his USF dormitory, wouldn't settle. "I feel like they were exploiting us," Prenzial said. Yet she worries her son will share the same fate as a Minnesota woman, Jammie Thomas. A jury last month ordered Thomas, 30, to pay $222,000 to six record companies after jurors found she illegally downloaded copyrighted music.
"I'm fearful of the outcome of this for Austin," Prenzial said.
"We are putting in a significant amount of effort into dealing with these issues," Pearce said.
USF also made available a free music downloading service to students at the beginning of the fall semester. The service, the Ruckus Network, enables students to tap into a free library of 3 million songs, and is in use at 170 colleges and universities nationwide.
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