An increasing number of UW network users might be facing $3,000 settlement costs, or litigation, over what the record industry says is illegal downloading of copyrighted material.

The UW received 36 prelitigation settlement letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last month. The letters accuse network users of illegally downloading or sharing copyrighted material, said Rolf Johnson, a state assistant attorney general with the UW.

This number is up 44 percent from the 16 letters the UW received in December 2007; they constitute a small portion of the complaints received by the UW from the RIAA, said Oren Sreebny, executive director of Emerging Technology at the UW.

The numbers of complaints universities are getting from the RIAA has risen. According to an RIAA press release, this increase is due to technological advances. RIAA officials say the numbers are an “improved reflection of the file-trafficking problem on college campuses.”

The prelitigation letters identify a computer’s IP address, where the RIAA says copyright law was violated.

UW Technology works to identify the individual associated with the IP address. This can be done by monitoring log-ins used at about the time of the activity cited, such as MyUW or e-mail programs.

“The general policy is if the UW is able to reasonably, clearly associate an IP address that the RIAA has addressed to a particular person, they will forward them. If not, they won’t,” Johnson said. “There are times when we’re not able to make a reliable identification, but there aren’t very many of those times.”

Sreebny said he isn’t convinced that the process used by the RIAA to identify information is always accurate.

According to www.p2plawsuits.com, a Web site set up by the RIAA to answer questions about the letters and to allow credit card payment of a $3,000 early settlement sum, a program called MediaSentry “monitors P2P networks.” P2P stands for peer-to-peer and is a common method of sharing copyrighted material.

Sreebny said his best guess is that MediaSentry has user accounts on all the major file-sharing networks.

If this is the case, dorm residents using network-specific programs like DC++ should be undetectable. That is, unless MediaSentry has sentries living in the dorms.

“MediaSentry has not been very open about sharing how they do their business,” Sreebny said. “We don’t have any way of looking at what they do to come up with their data and whether that’s accurate or not.”

Alex, a McCarty resident who requested that his last name not be used, said he’s never been worried about using DC++, though the network has been down for about two weeks.

Of the 52 letters sent to the UW, 22 have been settled, said an RIAA spokesperson who declined to be identified. The rest are pending.

For students who have received prelitigation letters, Student Legal Services (SLS) offers free consultations with legal interns. SLS director and staff attorney Carole Grayson recommended that all students who receive letters meet with SLS or an outside attorney.

Legal consultants also say people who agree to pay the $3,000 settlement sum don’t have to identify themselves to the RIAA. They can use a library computer to pay online or go through a lawyer, said April Bishop, a legal intern.

“Get a release, not just a receipt,” Bishop said. “Without a release, they can still sue you.”