Students 'rip, mix, burn' at their own risk

"Incarcerate 60 million Americans?" Grokster President Wayne Rosso asks. "They just don't get it. Every time they pull a move like this and we get mentioned in the media, more people start file sharing."

The volume of downloading on Grokster spiked by about 20 percent in the days after the RIAA's shock-and-awe subpoena tactic. As for the occasional 4 or 5 percent dips in traffic throughout the summer? Mr. Rosso scoffs. "Let's put it this way: It's all about control. They have lost it, and they're not getting it back."

Students express similar confidence. "It's not making me nervous," says MIT freshman Grant Oladipo, an electrical engineering and math major from Houston who, along with most of his friends, has been following the subpoena trail closely.

Some students believe that MIT will stand by them and protect their privacy. "Students will be more wary of [file sharing], and they may choose not to do it, but I don't think the administration will do anything," says MIT senior Ling Wong, a speaker for the undergrad association.

Students aren't the only ones on college campuses at risk of making the RIAA hit list. For all anyone knows, the RIAA subpoenas could nail professors or school administrators who have an appetite for free music.

"We don't know who these people are," Ms. Collins concedes, but she stresses that it is only a matter of time before the RIAA will. "Anyone on these systems who thinks they're anonymous is sorely mistaken. No one is above the law."

One RIAA official, who asks to go unnamed, admits that the association is targeting a specific user: the uploader. But the distinction between uploaders (who make music files available to others by storing them in a "shared" folder) and downloaders (who download to a personal folder) is a tricky one.

While downloading music from file-sharing sites, users retrieve the music files from other users' computers, and may be sharing their own files at the same time. Should these "uploaders" be punished more severely than those who take advantage of these vast networks but keep the songs to themselves?

A second note to students: The RIAA says yes.

Mr. Dunn at Boston College sees another pattern of targets. "What seems odd, given the scope of this, is when the RIAA rolled out these subpoenas they seemed to target high-profile schools in Boston and Chicago," he says.

"It was suggested that the rollout strategy would be Boston and Chicago, then New York and L.A., then Miami and Dallas, and so on, as a way of publicizing the issue. You can argue that the RIAA is fighting for its survival."

Chloe Tergiman, an MIT senior from Lyon, France, has recently decided to quit after nearly three years of downloading music from KaZaA. But she says it has nothing to do with the subpoenas.

Ms. Tergiman used to download music, at least in part, because of her disgust with major record labels - a disgust many say contributes to consumers' massive disregard of the industry's plea to pay. But, she says, that doesn't justify breaking the law.

"It's illegal, to start," the economics major says flatly. "And I'm at an institution where later on I'm hoping to publish papers and contribute to my field, and I'm going to have a little 'R' on my paper saying 'copyright material.' And hopefully that will be respected."

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