Lawsuits against four college students accused of trading copyrighted songs are the biggest punch yet by the recording industry against its core audience, and has experts worried that the next step will be suing the colleges themselves.

The Recording Industry Association of America filed the suits Thursday in three federal courts, naming one student each at Michigan Technological University and Princeton University and two others from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who ran Napster-like file-sharing services on their campus computer networks.

The damages sought by the suits are astronomical: $150,000 per song, the maximum allowed by law. Multiply that by the 652,000 or so songs the RIAA alleges student Joseph Nievelt offered to other Michigan Tech students on his service, and the scope of the suit is clear.

That total? About $97.8 trillion -- yes, trillion with a T -- Lawsuits against four college students accused of trading copyrighted songs are the biggest punch yet by the recording industry against its core audience, and has experts worried that the next step will be suing the colleges themselves.

The Recording Industry Association of America filed the suits Thursday in three federal courts, naming one student each at Michigan Technological University and Princeton University and two others from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who ran Napster-like file-sharing services on their campus computer networks.

The damages sought by the suits are astronomical: $150,000 per song, the maximum allowed by law. Multiply that by the 652,000 or so songs the RIAA alleges student Joseph Nievelt offered to other Michigan Tech students on his service, and the scope of the suit is clear.

That total? About $97.8 trillion -- yes, trillion with a T -- (Editor's Note: 150k X 652k = $97,800,000,000 which is nearly 98 Billion) or enough money to buy every CD sold in America last year over again for the next 120,000 years, according to RIAA statistics. And that's just Nievelt's case.or enough money to buy every CD sold in America last year over again for the next 120,000 years, according to RIAA statistics. And that's just Nievelt's case.

RIAA senior vice president for business and legal affairs Matthew Oppenheim said the suits are intended to send a clear message to anyone running these types of services that punishment will be swift and severe.

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