ettling lawsuits intended to strike fear in the hearts of college students who regularly download music over the Internet without paying for it, four students have agreed to pay the recording industry's trade association $12,000 to $17,000 each over the course of the next three years.

The suits were the first effort by the recording industry to take direct legal action against students in its efforts to stamp out Internet piracy, which has spiraled on college campuses despite the demise of Napster, the service that set off a frenzy of online music trading three years ago.

The suits charged the students with operating "mini-Napsters" on their campus computer networks and illegally supplying popular music for other students to copy.

The amount of the settlements came to far less than the potential billions of dollars originally asked for in the lawsuits, filed separately last month by the Recording Industry Association of America. The association said it was seeking to send a warning to students, rather than reap financial damages.

The settlements announced yesterday, which require an initial payment by each of the four students and annual installments through 2006, were seen largely as a slap on the wrist by some school officials and lawyers involved in the case. The students also agreed not to knowingly infringe the record label's copyrights using the Internet and to shut down the services that provided the network search tools.

"This seemed like a fair amount," said Matt Oppenheim, the association's senior vice president for business and legal affairs. "It seemed like an amount that was enough to deter both these students and others in the future."

But in a statement, Daniel Peng, a sophomore at Princeton University who was one of the students who were sued, denied any wrongdoing.

"I don't believe that I did anything wrong," Mr. Peng said. "I am glad that the case has been settled amicably, and I hope that for the sake of artists, the larger issues can soon be resolved."

To the dismay of the record labels, copying music over the Internet without paying for it has become an accepted way of life for college students. Many justify this by blaming the record industry for charging too much for CD's, not paying artists enough, or not providing acceptable legal alternatives.

The lawsuits are part of an increasingly aggressive effort by the record labels to tell Internet file-traders on campus and beyond that no matter what they may think of the industry's practices, their actions are illegal. Earlier this week, the recording industry association devised copyright infringement warnings that pop up on the computer screens of people who are providing music files for others to copy.

In addition to Mr. Peng, the complaints charged Joseph Nievelt, a student at Michigan Technological University, and Aaron Sherman and Jesse Jordan, both students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with directly infringing copyrights by providing dozens of songs from popular artists to other students to copy.

Since the lawsuits were filed, the record industry association says that more than 18 campus file-sharing networks like those run by the four students have been pulled down. Many college administrators are also increasing enforcement efforts. This week, the New Jersey Institute of Technology banned the use of file-sharing software.

But the lawsuits, which were widely discussed on college campuses, were seen by some students and school officials as taking unfair advantage of people who could not afford to defend themselves.

"This suit is about the industry's attempt to intimidate Internet users and instill fear of lawsuits against users of the Internet, particularly students," said Howard Ende, a lawyer from Drinker, Biddle & Reath who is representing Mr. Peng. "They need to find some other way to protect their economic interests than bringing suits against bright creative young people."

Andy Jordan, whose son Jesse will have to pay $12,000 to the recording association, said his son's Web site, which allowed students on campus to type in a search term and click on a link to copy the files residing on other students' computers, was much more like the popular Web search engine Google than Napster.

"The lawsuit was bogus," said Mr. Jordan, of Oceanside, N.Y., who is unemployed. "Jesse's worked very hard for three years, every summer, every weekend, to save up money for college. Now we're in a bind. How is he going to have enough to pay for next year?"