As record industry profits continue to fall, and music stores
continue to go out of business, record companies have decided to
make an example of college students found breaching copyright laws
by downloading music.
Earlier this month, the Recording Industry Association of
America filed a substantial lawsuit against college students
alleged to be running file-sharing networks (allegedly used to
exchange copyrighted music).
The recent lawsuit targets two file-sharing networks run by
students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Michigan Tech and
Princeton University. The RIAA is seeking the maximum damages
““ $150,000 per song.
The usage of peer-to-peer networks has caused serious debate
between the academic and entertainment communities.
To facilitate discussion about file sharing, representatives of
both worlds have come together and formed the Joint Committee of
the Educational and Entertainment Communities.
“We are working to try to prevent restraints of legitimate
uses of P2P (peer-to-peer) and other networking technologies, while
seeing what we can do jointly to reduce illegal copying of
content,” said John Hennessy, Stanford University president
and member of the committee.
The concern of the music industry is that people, especially
college students, are illegally obtaining music.
Many artists, including pop star Britney Spears and Grammy
winner Eminem, have expressed anger over such activity, equating
downloading copyrighted material with stealing a CD from a
store.
The RIAA has said that it is not illegal to download music off
the Internet, but it is illegal to not pay for it.
The industry body has been promoting the use of sites like
MP3.com and Pressplay, which charge their customers when they
download copyrighted music. The RIAA wants to stop the illegal free
acquisition of copyrighted music.
The idea of monitoring the information that travels through a
network worries academic administrators, who fear that controlling
the file sharing will limit the free exchange of ideas at U.S.
colleges and universities.
“P2P has important uses in exchanging data and public
information among members of the educational and
research community,” Hennessy said.
University of Rochester Provost and committee member Charles
Phelps said that once agencies start looking into the content of
packets of information being sent across the Internet, they run the
risk of violating the privacy of the individual.
“No one would contemplate opening up mail and looking at
it,” Phelps said.
Although students are responsible for whether or not they are
using a computer network legally, UCLA and other schools are not,
said UCLA Vice Chancellor of Legal Affairs Joseph Mandel.
“We are just an Internet service provider; we don’t
monitor and regulate the content that goes on,” he said.
Although UCLA does not monitor its network, if the school
receives a complaint that an individual is illegally copying music,
the school is required to perform an investigation, as prescribed
under the Digital Millennium Act of 1998.
Jim Davis, vice chancellor of information technology, said
first-time offenders are notified and asked to stop, but that the
punishment for repeat offenders is undetermined.
“UCLA is not yet prepared to deal with repeat
offenders,” he said.
All of the schools involved in the current RIAA lawsuit have
claimed they are not liable for the activities of their
students.
Davis said UCLA is not culpable for the usage that occurs on its
network, but that this does not relieve students of the legal
responsibility attached to copyright infringement.
Despite the fact that the RIAA convicted 3,432 persons of
illegal music pirating actions in 2002, UCLA students continue to
illegally download music and are generally not worried about the
consequences.
Matt Broberg, a first-year chemical engineering student, said
that since Kazaa and other networks are so widely used, he is not
worried about being prosecuted.
“I know that it’s technically illegal, but
it’s not well enforced,” he added.
Others students do not believe their actions are illegal, citing
the prevalence of commercial file sharing networks Kazaa, Morpheus
and Gnutella as a defense.
“I’m sharing files, I’m not stealing
music,” said Kevin Hampton, a second-year religious studies
and psychology student.
Sharing copyrighted music has significantly hurt the music
industry. Since the creation of Napster in 1999, the total sale of
music has dropped significantly, falling more than 11 percent in
2002.
In the past year, two UCLA-based music stores, Mojo Records and
Moby Disc, have been forced out of Ackerman Union because of the
decline in sales.
These record stores are going out of business partially because
students prefer downloading songs to purchasing CDs.
“I’d rather get (CDs) off Kazaa ““ I only buy
CDs if I can’t find anyone who has them on Kazaa,”
Broberg said.
Andrew Evangelista, a second-year economics student, cited
today’s college students as the primary users of file-sharing
networks, which, he said, is why this demographic has been selected
as the subject of the RIAA’s latest lawsuit.
“I’m not surprised they would target college
students to make an example,” he said.