On February 28, 2007, the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) announced that it is initiating hundreds of legal actions
against people at thirteen colleges and universities "who engage in
illegal file-trafficking of copyrighted content on peer-to-peer (P2P)
systems." A press release on February 28, 2007 states that the RIAA will send "pre-litigation settlement letters" to
universities on behalf of major record companies and will offer affected
students the chance to settle before litigation is initiated and to
thereby avoid a formal lawsuit. For this purpose, the RIAA has a new
website (www.p2plawsuits.com) that provides a guide to settling a lawsuit prior to litigation.
NYU is not on the list of institutions that the RIAA calls "the
initial wave of this new initiative." It's conceivable, though, that
NYU will receive a "pre-litigation settlement" letter from the RIAA
in a subsequent wave, since the RIAA has sued NYU students in the past.
Should that occur, NYU will follow long-established procedures to
alert affected individuals. It will be the responsibility of those
individuals to determine whether to settle prior to litigation. NYU
is not in a position to advise affected individuals on such matters.
NYU does, as a higher educational institution, encourage broad
academic freedom, while also striving to ensure privacy, to protect
intellectual property rights, and to abide by laws that cover the
fair use of copyrighted materials. In numerous efforts throughout
the year, NYU reminds all members of its community, and especially
students, to recognize the legitimate concerns of the recording
industry. In particular, be aware that most music files are copyright
protected, which means that they can be distributed only with the
permission of the people who own that copyright. For more information,
check NYU's Peer-to-Peer File Sharing website: www.nyu.edu/its/p2p/.