Preliminary results from UCLA’s “Get Legal”
campaign indicate that although students have begun to use the
program, it has gotten off to a slow start.
Get Legal, a program designed to combat online media piracy,
involves a one-year agreement with digital-media vendors CDigix,
iTunes and Mindawn, to provide UCLA students with legal avenues for
obtaining entertainment media.
Since the program’s inception on April 4, media options
provided by CDigix have been the most successful, with about 500
students using the CTrax service and 100 more signing up for its
other services, said Jonathan Curtiss, manager of technological
development for UCLA Student and Campus Affairs.
CTrax is a free subscription downloading service for students
through which songs can be downloaded to a computer. However, songs
must be purchased before they can be burned onto a CD or moved to a
portable media player.
CDigix also offers a video service through its CFlix
program.
Curtiss said though the number of CDigix users may seem low, he
considers it encouraging as Get Legal has not yet waged a thorough
advertising campaign.
He added that he is hopeful these numbers will grow rapidly once
Get Legal has a marketing campaign in place.
CDigix officials are also happy with the initial number of
students using CTrax, said Betty Yee, a second-year undeclared
student and marketing intern for CDigix.
Students have slowly started to use Get Legal’s iTunes
service as well, where songs still cost the standard 99 cents, but
5 percent of sales are donated to both the undergraduate and
graduate student governments, Curtiss said.
About 90 individual song purchases have been made through
iTunes, Curtiss said, which translates to $4.50 in donations to
student government.
Jenny Wood, former president of the Undergraduate Students
Association Council, said USAC did not expect any large donations
this year from Get Legal and had no specific plans for the money,
but added that she still thought the program was beneficial.
Mindawn ““ a service through which new artists, including
students, can upload and sell their music ““ has also reported
some sales, Curtiss said, though he could not comment on the
strength of those sales.
Despite slow student participation, some have been working to
promote Get Legal’s alternatives for media downloads.
Pavan Tripathi, last year’s USAC-appointed representative
on Get Legal’s B-Legal Committee and resident assistant in
Hedrick Summit, said he has encouraged many students in his
building to use CTrax.
“It’s been pretty popular in my building,”
Tripathi said.
Yee, who advertised CDigix services at a table on Bruin Walk
this quarter, said she talked to approximately 30 students about
CDigix and many seemed interested in CDigix’s services.
“People who actually used (CDigix) said it’s pretty
cool,” Yee said.
Tripathi attributed the slow student response to Get Legal this
year to the timing of the campaign’s release.
“It was a little late in the game this year,”
Tripathi said. “Students had already gotten into their
routines.”
But Curtiss said Get Legal is planning a new advertising
campaign that will start at new-student orientations this
summer.
This new campaign will consist of fliers and signboards around
campus, advertisements in the Daily Bruin and possibly a table on
Bruin Walk.
Curtiss added that Get Legal will be introduced to incoming
students this summer during the dean of student’s
presentation on filesharing at their orientation sessions.