[Infowarrior] - Music Industry Cracks Down on Colleges

[Richard Forno]

Music Industry Cracks Down on Colleges
Wednesday February 21, 7:47 pm ET
By Ted Bridis, Associated Press Writer
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070221/downloading_music.html?.v=11

WASHINGTON (AP) -- College students who faced lawsuits for illegally sharing
large music collections over campus computer networks increasingly risk
being unplugged from the Internet or even suspended over lesser complaints
by the recording industry.

In a nationwide crackdown, the music industry is sending thousands more
copyright complaints to universities this school year than last. In some
cases, students are targeted for allegedly sharing a single mp3 file online.

A few schools -- Ohio University and Purdue University are at the top of the
list -- already have received more than 1,000 complaints accusing individual
students since last fall. For students who are caught, punishments can vary
from e-mail warnings to semester-long suspensions from classes.

Ohio University said students caught twice sharing music online would face
the same disciplinary sanctions as classmates accused of violence or
cheating: suspension, probation or an assignment to write a homework paper
on the subject. Ohio said no student ever has been caught twice.

"When they told me I freaked," said Ryan Real of Louisville, an Ohio
University sophomore who was accused in November of illegally sharing not
music but a popular video game, "Grand Theft Auto," over the school's
network. Real said he was ordered to delete the game and the Bittorrent
file-sharing software he was using from his computer before the school would
turn his Internet connection back on.

"Everybody does it," Real said. "The odds that you are going to get caught,
it's not something you think about." Classmates who also have been caught
"still download illegally," Real said.

At the request of The Associated Press, the trade group for the largest
music labels, the Recording Industry Association of America, identified the
25 universities to which it has sent the most copyright complaints so far
this school year.

The group, which has long pressured schools to act more aggressively, said
software tools are improving to trace illegal file-sharing on campuses.

"We are taking advantage of that technology to make universities aware of
the problem on their campuses," said RIAA President Cary Sherman. "They need
to be sending a message to their students about how to live a lawful life."

The top five schools are Ohio, Purdue, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
University of Tennessee and the University of South Carolina. The RIAA
complained about almost 15,000 students at the 25 universities, nearly
triple the number for the previous school year.

"They're trying to make a statement," said Randall Hall, who polices
computers at Michigan State University, seventh on the list with 753
complaints. Michigan State received 432 such complaints in December alone,
when students attended classes for only half the month.

Hall meets personally with students caught twice and forces them to watch an
eight-minute anti-piracy DVD produced by the RIAA. A third-time offender can
be suspended for a semester; at least one student was targeted with three
strikes so far this year.

"I get the whole spectrum of excuses," Hall said. "The most common answer I
get is, 'All my friends are doing this. Why did I get caught?'"

The University of Tennessee requires second-time offenders to carry
computers to a technology lab where popular music-sharing programs are
deleted before Internet connections are restored. A student subjected to a
third complaint -- which typically happens once each year -- faces
punishment that ranges from a formal reprimand to suspension.

"They're apologetic and somewhat embarrassed," said Tim Rogers, the school's
vice chancellor for student affairs.

At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst -- which received 897
complaints -- first- and second-time offenders receive escalating warnings
about piracy. After a third complaint, the school unplugs a student's
Internet connection and sends the case to a dean for punishment.

The music group said each university should set its own penalties for
stealing songs and said campuses are rife with such thefts. "When we look at
the problem, it's particularly acute in the college context," said the
group's chief executive, Mitch Bainwol.

The trade group said popular software programs it has targeted at schools
include AresWarez, BitTorrent, eDonkey and other programs that operate on
the Gnutella and FastTrack services.

Under federal law, universities that receive complaints about students
illegally distributing copyrighted songs generally must act to stop repeat
offenders or else the schools can be sued. The entertainment industry
typically can identify a student only by his or her numerical Internet
address and must rely on the school to correlate that information with its
own records to trace a person's identity.

Some schools aggressively warn students after they receive complaints.
Others don't. Purdue, which has received 1,068 complaints so far this year
but only 37 in 2006, said it rarely even notifies students accused by the
RIAA because it's too much trouble to track down alleged offenders. Purdue
said its students aren't repeat offenders.

"In a sense, the (complaint) letter is asking us to pursue an investigation
and as the service provider we don't see that as our role," spokesman Steve
Tally said. "We are a leading technology school with thousands and thousands
of curious and talented technology students."