From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: University Cracks Down on MP3 Trade (NY Times on the Web)
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 10:44:22 -0600
November 10, 1999
University Cracks Down on MP3 Trade
By PAMELA MENDELS
Officials at Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cmu.edu/) have imposed
penalties on 71 students alleged to have posted digitized copies of music
recordings and other copyrighted material on the campus computer system.
The university temporarily revoked the students' dormitory-room access to
the Internet last month. It also required them to attend a 90-minute class
on copyright issues and write an essay about what they learned, or face
longer suspension of their in-room online privileges.
Paul G. Fowler, associate dean of student affairs, would not characterize
the action as a punishment, in part because there is no record of the action
in the students' records. But he said university officials believed they had
to take steps after discovering that more than a quarter of the computers
examined in a random check of 250 student machines last month contained
music and other files with copyrighted material. Since they were stored on
the campus network, he said, those files could easily be used by the 11,000
people on the network.
"The students were sharing unsecured copyright-protected material within the
intranet," Fowler said in an interview this week. "It's a violation of
copyright law and our computing code of ethics
(http://www.net.cmu.edu/docs/guidelines/) to distribute copyright-protected
material."
Fowler declined to disclose the names of the students.
Carnegie Mellon's action applied to postings within the campus internal
network, but it points to a problem music copyright holders have been
fighting for several years: that some college students, using MP3 technology
to compress music into computer files, are freely copying recordings and
making them available on the Internet.
Indeed, two years ago the Recording Industry Association of America
(http://www.riaa.org/), which represents major record companies, launched a
campaign (http://www.soundbyting.com/) to curb the practice. The RIAA has
since contacted about 300 colleges and universities that it believes have
hosted student sites with copyrighted music, according to Frank M.
Creighton, director for anti-piracy efforts at the association.
The reasons students are turning to the Internet to copy and distribute
music are not hard to figure out, said Joanne Marino, editor in chief of
Webnoize (http://www.webnoize.com/), an online publication covering
developments in digital music. Music-avid college students often live on
campuses offering high-speed, large-bandwidth computer networks ideal for
transmitting music files. At the same time, many young people are unaware of
the complicated laws protecting copyright holders.
Finally, there is the temptation to try to get music without having to plunk
down cash for a CD. "It's free music and everybody is excited about getting
something for free," Marino said.
Music is not the only source of problems. "I told some students 'the next
wave will be movies," said Rodney J. Petersen, director of policy and
planning for the office of information technology at the University of
Maryland in College Park, Md (http://www.umcp.umd.edu/). "They laughed and
said will be?'"
For several years, Fowler said, Carnegie Mellon has received periodic
complaints from the RIAA about student Web and FTP sites containing music
files that are hosted on campus networks. Matters took a turn for the worse
in early October. In the space of a week, Fowler said he learned of two
student Internet sites, hosted on the Carnegie network, "with tons of MP3
files." He also discovered that users of the university's intranet -- its
internal system accessible only to members of the Carnegie Mellon community
-- were reporting that numerous machines seemed to be sharing MP3 files.
University computer personnel then launched a random check of computers
using the system, according to Fowler. "Naively, I expected to find 10 or 15
machines identified," he said. "In reality, it was 71."
Each of computers, he said, held files that were either unguarded by a
password, so any member of the Carnegie community could open them, or
guarded only nominally by a password easily obtained or guessed. Most of the
material in the files was music, but movies and games were also present,
Fowler said. He adding that the intent seemed clear: Students had posted the
files so they could be used by others.
Students were given a choice: lose dorm-room Internet access for a month and
attend a 90-minute crash course on copyright issues or lose Internet access
for the rest of the semester. About 50 students chose the course.
Some students were unhappy with the action, according to Kevin M. Babbitt,
editor in chief of the student weekly newspaper, The Tartan
(http://tartan.web.cmu.edu/). For one thing, he said, some students believe
the university's investigation of student computer files not clearly marked
public was an invasion of privacy. For another, he said, the action seemed
at odds with lax enforcement of the internal networks in the past, so it
caught students by surprise.
"At first," he said, "students were upset, surprised and a little angry."
Fowler rejects the argument that university officials were invading student
privacy. He argued that all the files in question were clearly intended to
be easily available to the community.
As for lax enforcement in the past, he conceded that a "culture of
complacency" had developed on campus, so that some students believed they
could share copyright-protected materials with impunity on the school's
internal network. He hopes with the sanctions that the climate will change.
Fowler said he did not originally intend to send a message with the
sanctions, but, he added, "that certainly was the end state."