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A federal judge has granted the recording industry's request to subpoena the University of Arizona to turn over personal information of 14 students accused of copyright infringement.

The students are currently identified as John Does in a lawsuit that alleges they illegally downloaded or shared music files over the Internet.

The initial complaint was filed on Feb. 21 in U.S. District Court. On Feb. 26, attorneys for the Recording Industry Association of America asked Judge Susan R. Bolton to subpoena the UA to provide the names and contact information for the students now identified by computer IP addresses. Bolton agreed in an order signed Monday.

The RIAA will likely contact the university with subpoenas within a week, and universities typically have 30 days to release the information, said RIAA spokeswoman Liz Kennedy. UA spokesman Johnny Cruz said he had no comment on subpoenas that the university has yet to receive.

The lawsuit comes after the RIAA sent 14 prelitigation settlement letters to the UA on Dec. 6, part of an ongoing effort by the industry trade group that has involved hundreds of such letters each month for the past two years.

UA officials have decided against forwarding prelitigation settlement offers from the RIAA to students because they're not required to by law, said dean of libraries Carla Stoffle, who led a campus group that studied the issue.

"The university enforcing the publisher's responsibility means the university would take on an enormous financial burden, creating a compliance office and trying to track people down. Then what happens when we can't track them down? If we pass it on, that adds some legitimacy to the RIAA's complaint and there's an implied threat. Students might be settling just to settle," Stoffle said in an interview Friday.

The students are identified internally and forced to remove alleged illegal content from their computers, and are subject to discipline through the Dean of Students Office.

"We are being very responsible about enforcing the code of conduct in regards to inappropriate use of the network. We're doing our job," Stoffle said.

The UA couldn't identify five of the 14 students cited by the RIAA in the prelitigation letters, Stoffle said.

Kennedy said the RIAA considers it a "disservice" when universities don't pass along the prelitigation letters. However, students will still be given an offer to settle the case before they are specifically named in a lawsuit, though the settlement will cost more than if they had paid earlier.

Stoffle said the legal battles surrounding illegal downloading on campus networks will have ramifications that extend beyond the music industry.

"I think they're going to continue the pressure, and this is only the first salvo," Stoffle said. "I think the motion-picture industry is watching this. Other media are watching this, and publishers are watching it. If the RIAA can force universities to be agents of enforcing its copyrights, you will have other industries move in this direction."

Stoffle said the RIAA is trying to get people to settle out of court to avoid the negative publicity. "They're trying to have their cake and eat it to — suing without suing."