Fifteen students have received pre-litigation notices from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) demanding that they pay settlement fees for illegal file sharing through the Internet.

According to Lauren Schoenthaler, senior University counsel, the University received the notices from the RIAA on Jan. 9 and forwarded them to the respective students. Each notice demanded that the students pay the settlements by Jan. 28; otherwise the RIAA would bring lawsuits against the 15 individuals.

While the pre-litigation notices stipulate that each student pay upwards of several thousand dollars, the amount each student could owe if brought to court may be substantially greater.

“In speaking with affected students and their parents, the litigation process can be devastating financially and emotionally,” Schoenthaler wrote in an email to The Daily.

The RIAA located the specific students through their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, but it has not yet attained the names and information of the students from whom it is requesting settlement. Because the University is able to identify individual students on campus through their IP addresses, the RIAA relied on the University to relay the notices to the individuals. The RIAA will subpoena the University for the names and information of all those who fail to pay the settlement fee by the Jan. 28 deadline.

Greg Goldgof ‘08, one of the students being threatened with a lawsuit by the RIAA, received an email forwarded via the University from the law offices of Holme, Robert and Owen LLP on behalf of the RIAA. It stated that he had used the file sharing client LimeWire to illegally download and share files, and that he had until Jan. 28 to pay a $3,000 settlement, or else a suit would be filed. Goldgof claimed that, prior to receiving the notice, he “had not received even a single warning from Stanford.”

After receiving the pre-litigation notice email, Goldgof spoke with members of the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) and the Legal Counseling Office (LCO) of the ASSU. Goldgof claimed that the general response he received from the LCO and Schoenthaler was that he should simply pay the settlement. Unable to raise the $3,000 on his own, he contacted Prof. Lawrence Lessig of the Stanford Law School, who referred him to the Law School’s Fair Use Project. He was advised to consider fund-raising as a means of raising the settlement amount.

“I realized that probably the best bet would be to ask my friends to help me out,” Goldgof said.

In order to raise the needed funds to pay off the settlement, Goldgof created an event page on facebook.com entitled “Save Greg from the RIAA!!!” in hopes that his friends and sympathizers would donate money to help him. So far, he has raised approximately $1,200 through donations contributed via an eBay link on the page. While he hopes to be able to raise the full amount in time to meet the settlement deadline, he said he was in no way pleased with any aspect of the situation.

“There’s really no other option left open to me,” he said. “I have to pay $3,000 — it’s extortion.”

Since February 2007, the RIAA has handled the payment of anonymous settlement claims such as these through an online settlement Web site — www.p2plawsuits.com — through which the specific amount is paid by credit card with no personal interaction with lawyers.

“You basically go to some Web site and enter your credit card number like you’re buying a book online,” Goldgof said.

Since the first emergence of widespread online file sharing, the RIAA has filed numerous lawsuits against both organizations and individuals accused of illegally sharing music, videos and other media online. Those faced with the charges have included children as young as 12, as well as many college students from schools across the country.

For Stanford, this is not the first time that students here have been the target of suits by the RIAA — Schoenthaler said that in October 2007, seven students were given notices similar to those Goldgof and others received.

“Each of those seven lawsuits [were] settled by the students for thousands of dollars each and therefore the subpoenas were withdrawn before Stanford turned over any records,” Schoenthaler said. “Unlawful file sharing is just not worth the risk.”

In September 2007, the University of Oregon refused to comply with subpoenas demanding that the University hand over the identities of 17 students accused by the RIAA of illegal file sharing. Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers backed the University on grounds that included student privacy.

In the past, Stanford policy has been consistently and staunchly against file sharing on campus. In May 2007, Vice Provost for Student Affairs Greg Boardman announced that students caught violating the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act would have to pay a fine before their Internet connection was reinstated.

Schoenthaler, furthermore, likened illegal file sharing to violating the Fundamental Standard.

“Complaints against students for violation of the Fundamental Standard have and will be filed against students who illegally download or upload copyrighted material,” she said.

Schoenthaler claimed that the defining issue of the University of Oregon case was that the school lacked the capability to identify each of the alleged copyright infringers by their IP addresses.

“By contrast, Stanford is able to concretely link up individual users based on IP addresses,” she said, “and therefore Stanford would not be able to bring a sweeping motion to quash [the RIAA’s request] on the grounds cited by Oregon.”

The 15 Stanford students facing potential lawsuits from the RIAA now have less than a week in which to pay the pre-litigation settlements. If they are unable to do so by the deadline, subpoenas and lawsuits are sure to follow. In previous cases, courts that have found in favor of the RIAA have demanded defendants to pay upwards of $100,000, and sometimes the legal fees of the RIAA as well.

“It seems that the RIAA has so much push in Congress,” said Paul Keser, associate officer in the campus Information Security Office. “It’s been building for so long, and hopefully the ones who are getting these notices are finally starting to complain.”

In Goldgof’s case, if worse comes to worst and he is forced by the courts to pay a massive sum to the RIAA, it would almost certainly end or at least delay his plans of going to graduate school.

“Under these circumstances, normally I would file for bankruptcy,” he said. “I would be indentured to the RIAA for a long time.”