RIAA settles copyright-infringement lawsuit against four university students

onlinetracker used our news submit to tell us that the RIAA is going to settle the lawsuite we reported
earlier about. The four students were providing a service that searched the entire college network for MP3 files and the four also offered music for download on their computers.

The lawsuit was settled and the students will have each to make payments ranging from USD 12,000 to USD 17,000 split in anual payments between 2003 and 2006. According to the RIAA this is only a low price as they could  have damaged the music industry for hundred of millions dollars.

In their suits against Peng and the other students, the RIAA called the services they had created 'mini-Napsters." Ende said that Peng, as well as his attorneys, believed that the service he had run was more like Google than like Napster, since it had simply searched computers that would have been available and attached to the campus network with or without his software.      As part of their settlements, the students agreed not to knowingly infringe the record label's copyrights using the Internet. They will shut down the services that provided the network search tools. Peng's attorneys said he will instead provide links to a record industry Web site.

The settlement is also more a sign to other students that they should stay away from offering services and downloads to others, as they might face the same punishment. Read the entire story here.

Source: MSNBC.com