Josh Madden can usually be seen with a pair of headphones around his neck. The senior in advertising likes music, especially Atmosphere, Kanye West and Jurassic Five. But he doesn’t like paying for it.

So when Sony Music Entertainment Inc. — through a Los Angeles legal firm — contacted him in early September to inform him that he was being sued for copyright infringement, Madden knew he was guilty.

Madden admits what he’s done is criminal.

“There’s no getting around that,” he said. “I’ve shared songs. I knew it was illegal when I did it.”

According to press releases, the latest round of lawsuits, launched this year by the Recording Industry Association of America against 744 individuals, target mostly major violators of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Madden, a Daily staff writer, was sued in a “John Doe” case, meaning his name wasn’t initially added to the suit because only his Internet Protocol address was known. The letter said the RIAA obtained evidence that Madden had made copyrighted works available for mass distribution over a peer-to-peer network — a direct violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The letter also informed Madden that he could be liable for at least $750 per song illegally shared, and while he didn’t want to say how many songs the organization might be aware of, he said the penalty could have been tens of thousands of dollars or more.

In August, Mediacom, Madden’s Internet provider, sent Madden a letter informing him that his Internet records had been turned over because of a subpoena from the RIAA.

By mid-September, Madden decided to settle the suit. The RIAA found 901 songs on Madden’s computer and offered a settlement of $4,500.

Madden said he doesn’t have $4,500. He has turned to his parents for help in order to satisfy the RIAA’s lawyers.

The Congressional Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property released a report in August detailing steps taken by college campuses to curb violations. The report characterized the 2003-2004 school year as having seen “significant change in approaches to accessing digital entertainment content on college and university campuses across the country.”

It detailed the case of Penn State — a university that made an agreement with Napster to offer its students free streaming audio and downloading of songs. At least 20 universities had signed agreements in kind, the report said.

According to the report, more than 150 college students at 35 universities were targeted for lawsuits by the RIAA and other organizations last year.

At Iowa State, dealing with violators of the copyright act falls on the shoulders of Mike Bowman, assistant director of Academic Information Technologies, and Andy Alt, program assistant for the Dean of Students Office. When a complaint comes in from a copyright protection group, Bowman takes it.

The complaining agency gives him the IP address and a list of violations, and Bowman must find the machine that uses the address. But on a campus where most of the buildings fall inside of the wireless Internet range, some IP addresses change as the user moves from place to place.

These, Bowman said, are more difficult to track.

With the identity of the violator known, he turns the case over to Alt in the Student Judicial Affairs office.

Alt brings the accusations against the students. The first incident results in nothing more than a letter from the office and a request that the student remove the material.

There is no check to determine if these things are actually done, Bowman said, but future transgressors could find themselves facing more severe penalties, including disciplinary reprimands, conduct probation or deferred suspensions.

In the past year, Alt said, he issued approximately 317 notices to students. Of those, only 21 resulted in second notices. These individuals were entered into the judicial process.

The judicial process is necessary, Bowman said, but is intended to be used more for educational purposes than for prosecution.

“There’s a number of different reasons that students give,” Alt said. “Some of them, it’s a mistake, or their roommate uses their computer, or they leave it on and their friends are using it and they didn’t know or weren’t aware … Most of the reasons are, ‘I just didn’t take it seriously’ or ‘I didn’t think I’d get caught again’ or that someone else may have done it. And they’re all legitimate reasons.”

But Alt answers these reasons with a question: Are students responsible for what’s done on their computers?

Most respond yes, he said.