[Infowarrior] - MPAA names its Top 25 movie piracy schools

[Richard Forno]

MPAA names its Top 25 movie piracy schools

By Ken Fisher | Published: April 02, 2007 - 01:05AM CT

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070402-mpaa-names-its-top-25-movie-pi
racy-schools.html

The MPAA may be gearing up for an RIAA-inspired assault on US colleges and
universities. Last week the group announced its support for the "Curb
Illegal Downloading on College Campuses Act (2007)," and MPAA head Dan
Glickman said that his organization would work with school administrators to
put an end to movie piracy on campuses, which Glickman says costs the
industry $500 million annually.

Most telling, the group has heard the call of Representative Howard Berman
and has compiled a list of the most piracy-ridden schools in higher
education. This is a page straight out of the RIAA playbook. Here they are,
the schools that made the MPAA's "dishonor roll" and the number of students
identified as making unauthorized use of copyrighted materials:

   1. Columbia University - 1,198
   2. University of Pennsylvania - 934
   3. Boston University - 891
   4. University of California at Los Angeles - 889
   5. Purdue University - 873
   6. Vanderbilt University - 860
   7. Duke University - 813
   8. Rochester Institute of Technology - 792
   9. University of Massachusetts - 765
  10. University of Michigan - 740
  11. University of California at Santa Cruz - 714
  12. University of Southern California - 704
  13. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 637
  14. North Carolina State University - 636
  15. Iowa State University - 586
  16. University of Chicago - 575
  17. University of Rochester - 562
  18. Ohio University - 550
  19. University of Tennessee - 527
  20. Michigan State University - 506
  21. Virginia Polytechnic Institute - 457
  22. Drexel University - 455
  23. University of South Florida - 447
  24. Stanford University - 405
  25. University of California at Berkeley - 398

A number of schools have the dubious distinction of being on both the MPAA
and the RIAA list. The overachievers are: Ohio University (#1 RIAA/#18
MPAA), Purdue University (#2, #5), University of Nebraska at Lincoln
(#3/#13), UMASS (#6/#9), Michigan State (#7/#20), North Carolina State
(#9/#14), University of South Florida (#11/#23), Boston University (#15/#3),
and the University of Michigan (#18/#10). In all, 10 schools appear on both
lists, and Purdue University wins the Gold Medal for highest overall ranking
between the two combined.

Whether or not the MPAA will get into the trenches and follow the RIAA's
pre-litigation strategy is not yet clear, and historically the MPAA has been
less eager to wage a public campaign against file sharing. But like Santa,
the MPAA is making a list and checking it twice... the question is, are they
merely humoring Representative Berman or planning something more aggressive?