The foundering recording industry, suffering at the hands of the illegal music downloading taking place everywhere, has a new tactic in the battle to stop college students from copyright infringement through file-sharing.

University students downloading songs on campus networks are now being sent e-mails from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asking for pricey settlements to avoid lawsuits.

Sophomore Sarah Barg from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln recently received such an e-mail asking her to pay $3,000 for the 381 songs she had downloaded, according to an Associated Press article.

"Any student on any campus in the country who is illegally downloading music may receive one of these letters in the coming months," RIAA Spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen said in the AP article.

If students like Barg choose to face a lawsuit rather than settle out-of-court, they could face paying damages of $750 per each downloaded song.

College students, including us at the UW, need to realize that, in spite of how common music downloading has become, it is still illegal. Yes, everyone does it, but should anyone be asked to "face the music," it's not fair to say warnings weren't forthcoming.

And yet, the tactics being used by the RIAA seem unfair. They are sporadic at best, and randomly charging college students thousands of dollars isn't going to make a dent in the overall number of songs downloaded.

There is only one almost-impossible solution to the downloading problem, which requires voluntary consumer compliance.

As a generation, we have to realize that we want the product recording companies are offering – music – or else we wouldn't keep downloading it at the risk of lawsuits. If a $1 a song on iTunes is too much to ask, perhaps we're cutting off our noses to spite our faces – after all, each song downloaded illegally is another loss for the very industry we so strongly desire a product from.