University promises to be the RIAA's enforcers

THE UNIVERSITY of Washington has decided that if the music industry identifies IP addresses of students who are carrying out illegal file sharing it will track them down and serve them the legal papers.

According to the News Tribune, the UW will forward notices of pending lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America to students who engage in illegal downloading on the university's computer network.

Eric Godfrey, vice provost for student life at the UW Seattle campus, said that while the university will not pass the students' names to the RIAA, but it will use its server to identify them and inform them of their settlement options before they get stuck with a lawsuit.

He said it was not a matter of the university cooperating with the recording industry. It concluded that to not pass these along to our students would be unacceptable and more costly to them.

However student president Tyler Dockins said the vagueness of the University's position was disturbing and there was no indication if the situation was retroactive or not.

More here. µ