The heat continues to be turned up on universities who allow their students to use high-speed campus Internet connections for the uploading and downloading of music and movie files. The threat – and sometimes the actual filing – of lawsuits has resulted in action to curb this extremely damaging practice at several high-profile learning institutions. Other schools, however, have so far failed to address the problem, which is exacerbating enormously the overall problem of Internet music piracy.

On April 3, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed copyright infringement lawsuits against two students at Princeton University and one student each at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Michigan Technological University. The suits seek permanent injunctions shutting down illegal activity, without causing permanent harm to the financial status of the students.

The lawsuits followed a letter sent in January by RIAA and NMPA to 2,300 college administrator, which warned that the internal computer networks on many college campuses are being used by illegal file traders to infringe copyrights. The letter further noted that legal action might be taken if the illegal practices continue. Following that letter and the somewhat tepid response it drew, pressure on administrators has begun to come from other sources, including the U.S. Congress. Members of the House of Representatives especially are growing more outspoken about how peer-to-peer file-sharing is a crime under 1997 federal law, and about how the universities themselves bear responsibility for policing such activity.

Under the 1997 No Electronic Theft Act (NET), it is a federal crime to willfully share copies of copyrighted products such as software, movies or music with anyone if the value of the work exceeds $1000, or if the person hopes to receive files in return. Violations are punishable by one year in prison or, if the value of the work exceeds $2500, up to five years in prison. To date, the Justice Department has not sought such penalties under the NET Act, but in August of last year 19 members of Congress wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft urging him to do so.

The operation by students of “closed” network infringement sites on campuses, such as were the subject of the recent lawsuits, is far from the only misuse of university computers taking place. The effectiveness and popularity of online file sharing services such as Kazaa and Morpheus, which provide unauthorized access to copyrighted material for free through file-sharing software, is substantially increased through the use of high-speed university computer systems with enormous storage space. The university systems are converted by students into file-sharing “super-nodes,” causing literally millions of files to be available every day for illegal downloading across the Internet.

The down-side for universities, putting aside the ethical and legal issues, is that these massive diversion of system bandwidth (over fifty percent at many schools) frequently slows down network speeds and leaves computer systems open to viruses and hackers.

At a February 26 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, several Congressmen spoke out on the issue. The meeting marked the first for Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX), an outspoken proponent of strong copyright protection on the Internet, as the subcommittee’s new chairman.

Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), who in 2002 introduced a bill authorizing copyright holders to disrupt or disable peer-to-peer networks, suggested that universities block students from all use of peer-to-peer networks, maintaining that many campuses already employ filtering technologies to prevent other activities, including the accessing of pornography and the transmittal of electronic spam. He pointed to the University of Wyoming, which has installed software that monitors its network for excessive bandwidth use, almost always indicative of infringing file-sharing activities. Representative John Conyers (D-MI) added that universities must take a more active role in policing themselves, lest Congress be forced to do it for them. “There are people (on this Subcommittee) willing to take action,” he said.

Also testifying before the Subcommittee was Pennsylvania State University president Graham Spanier, who serves as co-chairman of a working group that includes members of the entertainment industry. Spanier stated that Penn State restricts students’ computer use by bandwidth consumed, not by the type of material downloaded or uploaded, and provides two warnings before their Internet access is disabled. Residence hall users are limited to 1.5 gigabytes of inbound or outbound traffic per week.

The university took action on April 21, 2003 when it deprived 220 students of high-speed Internet connections in their dorms after it found they were sharing copyrighted material. The connections to the students’ dorm rooms will be restored once the copyrighted materials have been removed, according to a university spokesman; meanwhile, the students can still access their campus accounts from other computers. The action followed by an e-mail sent by Penn State’s executive vice president and provost, Rodney Erickson, on March 31 to more than 110,000 students, administrators, faculty and staff emphasizing that the university prohibits sharing copyrighted material and warning that such sharing is against the law.

Earlier in April, 85 Naval Academy midshipmen were disciplined for using a military Internet connection to illegally trade copyrighted music and movie files. The punishments ranged from demerits and extra work to loss of privileges and leave, according to The Baltimore Sun. That move followed a November 2002 Annapolis incident, when the Academy seized 92 student computers on suspicions that the students had used the Academy’s T3 Internet line to set up 24-hour Internet hubs to trade music and movies, a violation of Defense Department policy and federal copyright laws.

Since that time, the Academy has installed software to restrict peer-to-peer file sharing, a move already taken by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Harvard has also taken steps to crack down, with the schools’ dean, Harry R. Lewis, sending a letter to the student body warning them that any students caught using Harvard’s computers to upload or download copyrighted material could be banished from the schools’ network. “The educational consequences of such a deprivation of access would be very serious, given the way students use the Harvard network on a daily basis,” the letter said, adding that students would receive only one warning before being blocked.

Other universities across the country also seem to be getting the message. The University of Maryland at College Park, Bradley University, and several other schools that have received multiple complaints either from the RIAA or from individual record and movie companies, are re-training their staffs and including information about illegal copying in their freshman orientations. Many schools, however, are still ignoring warnings and pleas for Cooperation. Cornell, for example, recently announced a plan to charge students for excessive bandwidth use, essentially placing itself in a position to profit from – rather than having to put a stop to – copyright infringement. Critical letters to Cornell’s dean from NMPA and RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of American have so far produced no constructive results.

“We would hope that the colleges themselves will take immediate, corrective steps to safeguard their networks from being utilized for massive copyright infringement,” said NMPA president and CEO Edward P. Murphy. “That would be the ideal solution. The technology to do so at modest cost is readily available. Nobody in our community wants to use litigation as the tool to stop this unacceptable behavior on campus. But without real cooperation, creators and copyright owners are sadly being left with little alternative.”

The problem has taken on an international dimension as well. In March, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced it has begun distributing brochures entitled “Copyright Use and Security Guide for Academic Institutions” to universities in 29 countries in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia. The brochures detail the legal and technological issues surrounding the use of file-sharing networks, and urge schools to take action. “This is a serious issue for the global copyright community,” continued Murphy, “the solution of which is going to require university cooperation around the world. One way or another, though, the problem will be solved.”

By Kevin Zimmerman