In the wake of a second series of Recording Industry Association of America lawsuits filed against Boston University students Thursday, students sued last spring advise future plaintiffs to settle their suits out of court in order to avoid further financial strains.

Most of the students sued face two options – they may either take the case to court or settle the charges, College of Arts and Sciences junior Nick Angiolillo said.

Angiolillo was sued by the RIAA last April alongside 24 of his BU peers.

“My advice for everyone is to settle as soon as possible,” he said. “Don’t take it to court. It’s not worth the time or the money and if you lose, you’ll be paying a lot more than you would if you had just settled.”

However, Angiolillo warned that settling can be complicated, advising students to hire attorneys to avoid dealing with the RIAA or the individual recording companies directly.

“Most of the settlements are non-negotiable and top out at around $4,000,” he said. “I have to pay the $4,000 myself and even with three jobs, it is tough to cover that.”

With all the legal fees incorporated into the cost, Angiolillo said the actual cost of going to court amounts to roughly $750 per song.

He said contrary to what many students think, it is just as possible to get in trouble for downloading songs that aren’t as popular as the more well-known ones.

“All of the songs on my list were from 1996 – No Doubt, Seal, Fiona Apple,” he said. “I was creating a sixth-grade themed playlist.”

In the newest wave of file-sharing cases, the RIAA recently released seven IP addresses to the university administration, BU Associate General Counsel Crystal Talley said.

“What it gives are various IP addresses,” she said. “Sometimes it turns out that one person matches up with two or three IP addresses.”

The university is usually subpoenaed to release the names of the students that correspond to the IP addresses.

Talley said this lawsuit is very similar to the one filed in April and said because the complaint is the same, the process will be the same.

“In the early days, people challenged various procedural aspects of what the recording industry is trying to do,” she said. “But they’ve pretty much got it down to a science now and they’re generally pretty effective.”

School of Management junior Sergei Vinokur also received a lawsuit from the RIAA in April.

“Because they extend the process so long, there’s no point for college kids to basically go through this,” he said. “Obviously no one has a million dollars … you can end up going bankrupt.”

Vinokur said although a professor advised him to wait out the process, he eventually decided a settlement would result in the same outcome and cost him less.

“I would try to get in contact with a law firm,” he said. “Then you can maybe talk your way out of it or try to tell them you have no money.”

With the help from a law firm, Vinokur added that he will not have to begin making payments until February.

School of Hospitality junior Kara Jansons is in the middle of trying to settler her case with the RIAA, she said.

“I would love to fight it,” she said. “But it would just end up costing so much more.”

Record companies including Sony Music and Warner Bros. Records are heading the charges in conjunction with the RIAA, according to the lawsuits.

“The whole music industry is very unethical and very unorganized,” Jansons said. “It’s just a bad place to be right now.”