So far, the RIAA has targeted over 14,000 students by sending copyright infringement notices to universities around the country. Along with the notices of infringement, the RIAA includes an option for early settlement in lieu of litigation. The RIAA sends these notices to the Universities instead of the specific students themselves because the only identifying information the RIAA has about the suspected infringers are their IP addresses. When an IP search is performed on the address, the only information that is returned is the internet address of the university that provided the students with the internet access. The only possible entity that could link the IP address with the individual student is the university. However, they have yet to be issued a subpoena for any of the information. In essence, the RIAA has been enlisting the universities as copyright watchdogs by asking them to forward the settlement offers to the individual students. Not all universities have complied with the wishes of the RIAA. Some notable universities are:

Purdue University
"The school almost never even notifies the students of copyright infringement." Article


University of Wisconsin
"The University of Wisconsin-Madison has responded to the RIAA's latest salvo in its campaign against on-campus file sharing by informing the record labels that they will not pass on individual settlement letters without a subpoena." Article


University of North Carolina
Though they did forward the settlement offers to their students, "the university's Student Legal Services department has been advising students to continue pushing back, all the way to federal court." Article


University of North Dakota
The university returned the settlement offers back to the RIAA citing their policy of deleting IP records of the students after 30 days. Thus, it is impossible for the university to identify the infringing users. Article


May 6, 2007