In recent years, the recording industry has brought lawsuits against college song-swapping suspects by filing batches of “John Doe” subpoenas, which identify students by their computers’ Internet-protocol numbers and ask college technology officials to provide names matching the numbers.
Now, though, the recording industry is asking colleges to get involved before it files any legal papers. Under the lawsuit process described in this letter from the Recording Industry Association of America, the group’s lawyers will send colleges batches of e-mail form letters, each identifying a particular Internet-protocol number, and will ask that the messages be forwarded to students whose machines correspond to those numbers. The messages explain that unless the students agree to an out-of-court settlement, the association will sue them.