That sounds like the kind of individual who provides the anonymous faculty whinge sites with material. Or perhaps a case study in chutzpah. I have to wonder, however, how effective the industry's efforts to request payment at $7.87 a tune will be.But the students coughing up the cash question why they're the ones getting in trouble.
"They're targeting the worst people," said [Nebraska] freshman Andrew Johnson, who also settled for $3,000. "Legally, it probably makes sense, because we don't have the money to fight."
Johnson got his e-mail in February, with the recording industry group's first wave of letters targeting college students. He had downloaded 100 songs on a program called LimeWire using the university network.
The money to settle came from the 18-year-old's college fund. He'll work three jobs this summer to pay back the money.
Johnson compares what he did to people driving 5 miles per hour over the speed limit.
"It's not like I downloaded millions of songs and sold them to people," Johnson said.
The top collegiate offenders include Ohio University, with 100 students being asked to settle out of court or face trial, South Florida with 81, and Tennessee and Northern Illinois at 78 currently offered the settlement. Public Affairs staff are not sure why the university made this final four.
"We're really puzzled about that," says [assistant vice president for public affairs Melanie] Magara. "We really don't know why NIU has been targeted. We're puzzled because we feel we've done a good job educating students. We feel we've been really proactive about it."That may be the case. We don't know how many people would be receiving letters had the university not let students know use of university computers to download music was against the rules. I leave it to the reader as an exercise to work out the implications of the title "assistant vice president for public affairs" as well as of the use of "proactive."
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