RIAA Demands Payments from College Students

How would you like to get this email from your college kid, the one you're shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for to pay for his education?

"Hi Mom: The recording industry says I owe them $3,000 or they're going to sue me! Help!"

Help, indeed. As I wrote in a previous post, the Recording Industry Association of America is getting tough on illegal file sharing of copyrighted music, and taking aim where sharing music from the Internet is as common as Frisbees, college campuses.

The RIAA has sent letters to 50 Ohio University students telling them each to pay $3,000 for illegally shared music files to avoid lawsuits accusing them of stealing songs from the Internet, the AP reports. The association, which is stepping up its legal action on college campuses, has already sued more than 18,000 computers users since 2003, and more than 1,000 of them were computer users at 130 universities.

As Chris Null notes in his post on Steve Jobs' stand against Digital Rights Management (DRM), unwieldy restrictions on the use of purchased digital music, the recording industry association's litigious ways are going to destroy any remaining goodwill the music industry has with its customers.

Music services such as Ruckus and Napster are offering free music downloads while kids are in college to try to stem the flow of pirated songs on college campuses. But they come with restrictions that irk college students. The Ruckus songs must stay on your computer to be free; there's a fee to transfer them to MP3 players. And Napster offers free downloads to students—but the music is theirs to keep only while they're in school. If you want to keep a collection amassed during college, then you'll need to pay Napster in the end.

Seems the music industry's DRM approach is hitting a wall, but what's the answer? Maybe Amazon's rumored approach to sell unrestricted songs for a buck is the best shot. What do you think?

To help you mull it over: 

Music Industry Steps Up Campus Complaints
Why College Kids Are Turning Down Free (Legal) Music
"Free" Music for College Kids 
Amazon to Sell DRM-Free MP3s?