The recording industry’s newest crackdown on music-file sharing has extended to UC San Diego.
The Recording Industry Association of America filed suit Wednesday against 25 UCSD students who allegedly shared songs using Internet2, a high-capacity telecom network linking research institutions. The group alleged that the individuals targeted in the lawsuits have, on average, swapped 2,300 songs apiece.
The Internet2 network handles data many times faster than the conventional Internet. A person on Internet2 can download a song in 20 seconds and a movie in five minutes.
The trade group said it filed the suits in response to “an emerging epidemic of music theft.”
For now the lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, identify the students by their Internet protocol address. A UCSD spokeswoman said the university was anticipating a subpoena seeking the names of the students. The university said it would comply with “all valid requests” for information.
The industry filed lawsuits against a total of 405 students from 140 schools from California to Cambridge, Mass.
Brad Graves
