THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
ANIGHTINTHE LIFE OF AKUCOP
One reporter's adventure
PAGE 9A
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOLUME 118 ISSUE 141
CAMPUS
Chief Justice to speak at Lied Center
The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John G. Roberts Jr. will visit campus this week, and several students will receive the opportunity to question him about his decisions tonight.
FULL STORY ON PAGE 3A
ENTERTAINMENT
Game release causes frenzy, sells quickly
Grand Theft Auto IV launched worldwide Tuesday, and copies flew off the shelves of Lawrence retail stores.
FULL STORY ON PAGE 3A
أحمد بن محمد بن علي الأشعري الأزهري الحديث عن المؤمنين
77 61
Partly Cloudy/Windy
wetness.com
weather
THURSDAY
72 50
Isolated T-Storm
index
All contents, unless stated otherwise 2008The University Daily Kansan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
65 44
Partly Cloudy
OBAMA FORMALLY DENOUNCES REV. WRIGHT
FULL AP STORY PAGE 8A
Classifieds. ... 5B
Crossword. ... 6A
Horoscopes. ... 6A
Opinion. ... 7A
Sports. ... 1B
Sudoku. ... 6A
Fisher, a Garden City junior, couldn't have predicted the frantic phone call to her parents, the summer she would spend working to pay off her debt, or the new identity she had received: Jane Doe No. 9, one of 13 John and Jane Does who had been caught illegally sharing music files on the KU Internet network.
She didn't yet know that she was on the front lines of the music industry's battle against copyright-infringing college students who download music for free rather than buying songs from the iTunes store or CDs from Best Buy. She didn't know that she, a college student receiving $20 a week for her job as a resident assistant, would soon hand over $4,000 to multimillion-dollar music corporations. And she didn't know that the University could have saved her $1,000 by telling her more than six months before that a lawsuit was pending against her, but didn't.
Many of the college students who download more than one billion songs illegally each year through services such as LimeWire don't know that they may be entering the recording industry's bad-luck file-sharing lottery, where the prize is a copyright infringement lawsuit. Students whose numbers are called in this lottery must decide quickly whether to pay a settlement of $3,000 to $4,000 or to fight the lawsuit in court, an uphill battle that could cost thousands in legal fees. And universities such as Kansas must decide whether to help the record companies identify the students who have lawsuits hanging over their heads.
THE UNLUCKY 13
Lacey Fisher's lottery number was called at 5:59 a.m. on June 23, 2007.
That was when, according to court documents, the Recording Industry Association of America found her sharing 187 copyrighted music files over the Gnutella file-sharing network — the network used by the popular software LimeWire — including songs by Rihanna, Outkast and Fall Out Boy.
Fisher was living in Oliver Hall, working as a conference assistant for the Department of Student Housing. But she wouldn't know of her fate until more than seven months after she was caught.
It was Feb. 11 of this year, when Fisher checked her e-mail in her room in Corbin
Hall, where she is an RA. She almost ignored the message with "Confidential" in the subject line but he decided she should read it.
"I just wasn't expecting a subpoena about downloading music" she said.
But that's exactly what she saw - a court order requiring the University to turn over to 13 record companies the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of Fisher and 12 others accused of copyright infringement.
A letter from a University attorney, attached to the e-mail and also sent to her home in Garden City, told her the RIAA had already filed lawsuits against the 13 students — or, at least, against 14 "John Does," because it did not know their names.
The University found that two of the "Does" were no longer students, and two of the "Does" turned out to be the same person.
Fisher's head immediately swirled with horror stories shed heard of people settling with the record companies for thousands of dollars, and she remembered hearing of one woman who had to pay more than $200,000 for just 24 shared songs. That woman, a single mother in Minnesota, was the defendant in the first U.S. file-sharing lawsuit to go before a jury.
In the eyes of the record companies, Fisher was John Doe No. 9, though she preferred to go by Jane Doe.
She also thought about all the people she knew whol illegally downloaded music, movies and TV shows and hadn't faced any consequences.
"Then I got frustrated, real frustrated," Fisher said, "because it's like probably 90 percent, if not more, of people our age are guilty of this."
Another of the 13 KU students sued by the record companies, John Doe No. 10 in the lawsuit, requested that his name not be used in this story. Doe No. 10, a Wichita sophomore, was detected sharing 114 music files April 21, 2007, while living in Oliver Hall. He said the e-mail informing of him of the lawsuit confused him at first.
"At first, I didn't even know what it was, other than it was from the RIAA, and they didn't sound happy," he said.
SEE DOWNLOADS ON PAGE 4A
TIMELINE: THE KU RECORD INDUSTRY LAWSUITS
Summer 2007
The Recording Industry Association of America sends 14 letters to the University, warning of copyright infringement lawsuits against unknown students. The University decides not to forward the letters on to the students, so they don't get the chance to settle for about $3,000 before the RIAA files the lawsuits.
September 2007
A group of 13 record companies files lawsuits against the 14 unknown "John Does" accused of illegally sharing music on the KU Internet network.
October 2007
A judge allows the record companies to serve the University a subpoena, requiring it to turn over the names and information for the "John Does."
February 2008
The University receives the subpoena from the record companies, and it tells the students they've been sued – more than six months after the RIAA sent the original warning letters. The University finds that two of the "John Doe" lawsuits apply to the same person, and two of the students are no longer enrolled at the University.
March 2008
Two KU students try to fight the record companies, asking the judge to throw out the subpoena sent to the University.
April 2008
The judge denies the two students'motion to quash the subpoena. By now, seven of the 13 students have settled with the record companies for $4,000 each.
The next step:
After the record companies get the six remaining students' information, they will proceed with the lawsuits and offer an increased settlement of about $5,000.
---