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In an unusual twist in the fight over online file sharing, several college students who have been sued by the recording industry are asking the creator of a file-swapping service to pay to settle the charges against them.More than 30 students at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst are demanding that i2hub, which was founded and run by 22-year-old Wayne Chang, pay the $3,750 the Recording Industry Association of America is seeking from each to settle allegations that they traded copyrighted music and movies online.The students are arguing that if it weren't for i2hub, they wouldn't have broken the law. "Had the UMass students known that i2hub was making their copyrighted information available for sharing over the Internet … they would have likely not used i2hub, opting instead to use legal music downloading services," read a letter sent to Mr. Chang by the university's Student Legal Services Office, which is representing the students. The office is supported by student fees and located on campus, though does not represent the university itself, a university spokesman said. The letter was sent Dec. 16, and warned that if a reply was not received in 30 days, the group would file a lawsuit under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, which forbids companies from engaging in unfair or deceptive practices. On Monday, Charles Baker, Mr. Chang's attorney, wrote in a letter to the group that i2hub "has no intention of making any offer of settlement because it has no liability in this matter." The two sides haven't communicated since.Mr. Baker, a Houston lawyer who is representing Mr. Chang for free and also represents embattled file-sharing service StreamCast Networks Inc., wrote in his response letter that i2hub never claimed to be endorsed by the university, and that each i2hub user was required to agree not to commit copyright infringement before they were allowed to use the software. He wrote that students "were well aware of the fact that what they were doing was potentially illegal." Mr. Chang, for his part, said i2hub didn't encourage illegal file-swapping.
