Hey college students, listen up. If you are trading music illegally via peer-to-peer file-sharing services like BitTorrent, you should know that the RIAA is watching you.
According to the Associated Press, the RIAA has ramped up its efforts to stop illegal song-trading in colleges by issuing almost three times the number of complaints it did last year. Some schools have been hit with more than 1,000 complaints. Among the top offenders are Ohio University, Purdue University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Tennessee, and University of South Carolina.
So what are the schools doing about it? Purdue pretty much leaves offenders alone, claiming it's too much hassle to track down students based on the IP number given to them by the RIAA. Michigan State University forces two-time offenders to watch an anti-piracy DVD and may suspend three-timers for a semester. And at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, students receive warnings; if they get hit with a third complaint, they lose their Internet connection and they face the wrath of the dean. (I would hate to be that person's roommate.)
