DAYTON — The University of Dayton last year received 16 pre-litigation settlement letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asking students accused of illegal file-sharing to settle for $3,000 or face the threat of a lawsuit.

"Later that year we were served with a subpoena requesting eight of those students' names and so that information went forward," said Tom Skill, UD associate provost and chief information officer. "Our assumption there is eight students must not have settled," Skill said.

Challenging an RIAA piracy claim can be costly, as evidenced by the $220,000 a Minnesota woman was ordered to pay Capitol Records in a 2007 civil trial for sharing 24 songs on a file-swapping network.

Such lawsuits have had a "chilling effect" on music and movie piracy on campus, Skill said.

"We have seen a substantial decrease in the aggressiveness with which our students are doing this, but the cease-and-desist letters remain at about a constant level."

Wright State University has not received any RIAA pre-litigation settlement letters, said Larry Fox, associate director of network, telecommunication and desktop services.

The reason may be the Audible Magic Box, an appliance Wright State has used for the last three years to prevent illegal downloads on its network.

Wright State and UD both "shape" their Internet bandwidth to limit the volume of file-sharing. Both universities offer students Ruckus, a free, ad-supported online music service available to U.S. colleges.

"We're really pretty compliant with what the industry is saying we should do," Skill said.

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