The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has launched a second set of lawsuits against people for illegally downloading music. However, some people in the Penn State community disagree about whether filing lawsuits is an effective way to stop the problem.

"It's important for people to know that this activity is illegal and has consequences. There are legal ways to get music online, and there's no excuse to steal it," said Amanda Collins, an RIAA spokeswoman.

Last week, the RIAA filed 531 "John Doe" lawsuits in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Orlando and Trenton, N.J.

Prior to a December ruling, RIAA could file lawsuits under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allowed record companies to serve an Internet Service Provider (ISP) with a subpoena that required them to turn over the illegal downloaders' information.

Now, RIAA files a "John Doe" lawsuit, which acts as a placeholder until the names of the individuals are determined. The only information currently known to the RIAA is the illegal downloaders' Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Once the "John Doe" suit is filed, the judge can tell the ISP to provide information such as the person's name or address.

John Bagby, an information sciences and technology professor at Penn State, said taking legal action in a highly publicized way ends up costing less and helps to prevent file sharing.

Jordan Murtha (junior-accounting) said filing lawsuits is not an effective way to solve the problem. "I don't think it's that effective because people are still doing it."

Comcast Cable Communications and Earthlink are two of the biggest Internet providers in the country, and both have similar policies on this issue. "We will certainly honor a request from the court, but we don't monitor our users online. If they are pursuing a case, we want them to follow the proper steps that respect the legal rights of our customers," said Dave Blumenthal, an Earthlink spokesman.

Blumenthal explained it's difficult to monitor file sharing because the files exist on customers' computers and only cross briefly through the provider's network.

Comcast placed a high priority on customer privacy and will notify customers if they are subject to such lawsuits. In a written statement, the company said it will not give customer information to RIAA or other companies in similar civil cases unless a valid court order is issued. Also, the court order must contain sufficient information to identify the customer account on the dates listed within the court order.

Penn State and Napster reached an agreement on Jan. 12 that has allowed on-campus students to legally download songs from the online music company. The program will be available to all 83,000 students by the fall 2004 semester.

"The possible business that [an] agreement like this [can] offer is unlimited. It's a milestone in the evolution of the legal delivery of music," Collins said.

Bagby said the success of legal downloading services depends on the ease of using the system and the size of the song library.

Brian Pompeii (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) said he liked the radio options available on Napster, and he still purchases CDs even though he downloads music. "If I think they've got something good going on, I'll buy their CD."

Robert Frieden, a Penn State professor of telecommunications, teaches an Internet law course that addresses the issues involved with illegal downloading. He supports the Penn State-Napster agreement because it allows people who are sharing music files to "test drive" the music.

Developments in technology also allow for more potential violations, such as movies and computer games being copied from illegal file-sharing services.

"The technological advances in bandwidth and storage [allow for] other types of works [to] be exchanged in peer-to-peer networks," Bagby said. He added that an exchange of works still protected could lead to copyright infringement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.