Congress recently sent letters to 19 universities, including UCLA, that have been singled out by the movie and music industries for illegally downloading content, asking them to complete a survey about their measures against illegal file sharing.
But university officials said they believe the data used to determine the prevalence of such piracy is misleading.
The letter was signed by five members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Education and Labor, including three from California, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education, but the lawmakers’ offices were unavailable for comment on Friday.
UCLA and the other schools received the letters because they received the most copyright infringement notices during the last academic year, according to industry figures.
Kenn Heller, assistant dean of students at UCLA, said a number of people from different parts of the university are working on different sections of the survey.
Jim Davis, associate vice chancellor of information technology and chief information officer, said his staff is “quite far along” on the questionnaire, which is due Thursday.
Though some schools were hesitant to respond to the current survey, Davis said UCLA officials have been consistently open about their policies on online piracy.
“(There is) nothing to hide or nothing that hasn’t already been brought forward in a public manner,” he said.
Davis, who has previously appeared before the House committees to testify on the matter, said university officials have reviewed the reported data and found “concerning” issues about the figures.
He said the motion picture industry, for example, claimed UCLA received 889 Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices over a specific time period, but the university only has records for about 200 instances.
“Our data is far, far less (than the industries’),” he said. “(We’re) in the process of reconciling the data and (figuring out) why there is such a large gap.”
He said he believes the information is taken out of context by industry officials, because they do not factor in how many students attend the university when looking at the number of offenses.
“Those numbers did not reflect the size of the university,” he said. “If you were to adjust the numbers … you would get a very different picture.”
Davis said the university’s records show that over the last three years, since the industry has been targeting college students for online piracy, the number of repeat offenders has remained at about 9 percent, despite a 44 percent increase in the Hill’s population.
Caitlin Lawrence-Toombs, a first-year political science student, said she does not believe online piracy is a significant problem within her group of friends.
Lawrence-Toombs, who lives on the Hill, said most of her friends do not illegally download music and movies on campus because of the potential consequences.
“I used to download music, but only at home,” she said. “I don’t think most people want to risk it.”
Davis said the school’s approach to online piracy is focused on educating students.
“We’re one university that has taken a particularly strong position that this is a student life issue and not an information technology issue,” he said. “(There is a) need for due diligence when there is an alleged infringement.”
Some other schools, such as Ohio University, have opted to block peer-to-peer file sharing on their networks.
Heller said UCLA will not block peer-to-peer software because there are legal and academic purposes for file sharing, and school officials do not want to block such communication.
“It’s not an option the university has considered,” he said.
One problem for university administrators is finding a legal service that gives students more flexibility with the media they download, such as the ability to put music on mobile devices, Davis said.
He added that there needs to be “more work by (the) industry to get that right.”
Lawrence-Toombs said she would use university-sponsored legal alternatives if the music could work with her iPod.