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Pre-Litigation Letters Put Colleges Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Chronicle.com

Pre-Litigation Letters Put Colleges Between a Rock and a Hard Place

This week The Badger Herald, the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s student newspaper, profiles “Elizabeth,” one of the growing number of college students who have received pre-litigation notices from the Recording Industry Association of America. The piece is well worth reading: It sheds a lot of light on how the notices, which encourage students to settle file-sharing claims out of court, are putting colleges in sticky situations.

In Elizabeth’s case, the university seemed to be doing everything right. In March, Wisconsin received 16 of the pre-litigation notices, each intended for a different student. Instead of just forwarding the letters to the students, campus officials convened a small meeting during which they encouraged the students to seek legal counsel (made available free through an affiliate of the university’s law school) instead of settling quickly out of court.

According to many IT-policy experts, that was exactly what colleges should be telling their students. But Elizabeth says the advice backfired. By the time she had consulted with lawyers and decided to settle anyway, the RIAA had taken its offer of a “discounted” settlement, made in the pre-litigation notices, off the table. The student says she ended up having to pay $1,000 more than if she’d just settled right off the bat, and she’s not thrilled about the money she lost.

“I felt like the university was trying to fight with the RIAA,” she told the Herald, “and I was what they used to fight them.”

It’s understandable that Elizabeth feels frustrated. But for Wisconsin officials, this is precisely the sort of no-win situation that some campus administrators envisioned at the onset of the RIAA’s pre-litigation campaign. Few colleges will feel comfortable pushing students toward out-of-court settlements. But if those institutions urge students to explore all their options before settling, and the advice doesn’t pan out, they run the risk of upsetting students caught in the crossfire. Now that the RIAA has made clear that its discounted settlement offers really are short-term deals, what should colleges be saying to students who receive pre-litigation letters? —Brock Read