Senate, industry target illegal file sharing across campus networks

The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and passed on May 22, demands that colleges and universities "adopt policies and educational programs on their campuses to help deter and eliminate illicit copyright infringement occurring on, and encourage educational uses of, their computer systems and networks."

Campus network file sharing happens any time someone uses a university's computer resources to send or receive a copyrighted file, such as a term paper or song. As universities take steps to restrict the use of their bandwidth to access the Internet, campus file sharing has shifted more and more to local area networks, known as LANs.

Steve Tally, media relations manager for Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), said that file sharing across local area networks has increased due to new software.

"Although the vast majority of file sharing occurs with peer-to-peer applications across Internet-based connections, new utilities allow widespread file sharing within local computer networks, such as Purdue's ResNet and Air Link systems," Tally said. "File sharing across these networks is a copyright violation if you make copyrighted songs and movies available to others for downloading."

The Senate resolution comes in the wake of increased political pressure against campus file sharing from the entertainment industries. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) recently sent letters to the presidents of 40 U.S. universities in 24 states — including Indiana — regarding file sharing activities on university local area networks.

According to the letters, these two groups suspect that college students are using their universities' internal networks to share copyrighted files with each other, thereby avoiding the Internet and staying hidden from entertainment industry investigators.

The notices, dated April 27, inform university presidents about file sharing activities on their internal networks and recommends launching internal investigations to ferret out offenders. The letters also mention specific software utilities used in these alleged copyright violations, such as DC++, a popular file-sharing application.

"We advise students, faculty and staff to exercise good judgment and respect copyrights when using file sharing programs, such as DC++ and derivatives," Tally said. "It is legal to share copyrighted files using these or any file sharing programs only if you hold the copyright or you have the clear permission of the copyright holder to share the file. The MPAA and RIAA are serious about protecting their copyrights and may take action against copyright infringers."

The two organizations did not release the names of universities that were sent letters, instead listing only the states in which the universities are located. The states included in the new effort against LAN-based file sharing are California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Washington, plus Washington, D.C.

The RIAA and MPAA campaigns to curb copyright violations across peer-to-peer networks have included annual letters to Indiana universities, as well as litigation aimed at Indiana residents. According to legal documents filed in August 2005 in a U.S. District Court in Indiana, Columbia Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox film studios sued two individuals for allegedly using Purdue's Internet service to share their movies on peer-to-peer networks.

"Whether the combination of industry and legislative pressures will have an effect on student behavior remains to be seen," Tally said. "However, it's clear that the [entertainment] industry's defense of its copyrights is having an impact in Congress and in the civil courts. The belief that one is anonymous or untraceable on the Internet is false and can lead to a lawsuit. Universities may not be actively looking for copyright violations on their networks, but that is out of the file sharer's control. The only safe course for file sharers is to respect the copyrights."

Source: Steve Tally, (765) 494-9809, tally@exchange.purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

To the News Service home page