College campuses have always been hotbeds for creating and trading music, but the advent of the Internet and MP3 files has taken that to a whole new level.
These days, when a college freshman logs on to a new campus computer account, she suddenly has access to hundreds and thousands of songs dished out on dorm servers and the Net. She may be aware that many MP3s on the Net are illegal copies, but it isn't likely to affect her downloading habits.
This has the recording industry a bit concerned.
As a result, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been aggressively cracking down on the distribution of copyrighted music by servers on college campuses and warning universities to shut them down.
In November, Jeffry Levy, an 22-year-old University of Oregon student became one of the first MP3 casualties when he pleaded guilty to distributing illegal music files over the Net.
Levy was sentenced to two years' probation with periodic drug tests and a limit on his access to the Internet. More recently, 71 students at Carnegie Mellon University were disciplined after posting illegal MP3 files, and the University of South Carolina made news when a student was caught distributing illegal MP3s.
During an informal survey last week at the University of California in Berkeley, the prevailing attitude among students was that if something is on the Net, it's free game. None of the students had heard of the crackdowns at other campuses, but they were generally aware of the copyright issue. And they didn't seem concerned about getting busted.
Of the 40 or so students interviewed on campus, just under half of them had downloaded MP3 files from the Net or a campus server. Most of the files contained copyrighted music.
Two women sitting on the steps of the Administration Building were hesitant to discuss MP3 files with a Wired News reporter. But finally they said, "well, everyone in the dorms does [downloads MP3s]."
Cheryl, a freshman in molecular and cell biology, said she has hundreds of files on her computer, most of them copyrighted songs.
"Some of my brother's friends have gotten calls because they were posting too many files, and the administration tells us that we're not allowed to have MP3s on the [university] servers," she said. "They tell us a lot not to do it, but they're still all over the place."
Margarita, a sophomore in engineering, said she had never bought any music over the Web but has plenty of MP3 files, which she downloaded on a DSL connection using FTP servers. "Yeah, I know about the piracy ... but I don't think it's worth buying a CD with 12 songs just to hear the one that you like."
Margarita said most of the music she downloads is copyrighted, but she doesn't worry about the consequences.
There are several laws that apply to illegal MP3s, foremost among them the No Electronic Theft Act, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Standard copyright laws also apply on the Net.
Karen Eft, an information technology policy analyst at UCal, said the university had been contacted several times by the RIAA about MP3 sites on campus servers and it has shut down users in every case.
There are also education campaigns on campus to inform students of the risks involved with music piracy. During registration, each student is given a computer-use policy manual, and newsletters and other notices are distributed throughout the year.
"My guess is that people are taking it very seriously, and I know in the residence halls they are," Eft said.
"This is dangerous, and there's a feeling out there that everybody's doing it, so we have to countermand that with a reality check," she said. "Sure, everyone goes 80 on the freeway. But every once in a while you get caught and the penalties are really bad, even if it's common practice. So it is scary, there are penalties, and people discount that so we have to work to let them know what could happen."
Frank Creighton, director of anti-piracy at the RIAA, said that in 1997 university networks were responsible for about 70 percent of MP3 pirate sites. Today, that number has dipped to about 30 percent.
As its first line of defense, the RIAA supplies universities with education materials related to music piracy, a program that is being expanded to high schools and grade schools this year. The RIAA has also started a "soundbyting" campaign to clarify its position on piracy.
The RIAA gets tough, too. It has a team that tracks music pirating on the Net using an automated crawler that archives pages with dates and time stamps. That way, it can contact ISPs and universities with specific information relating to a site.
Of course, it actively works to shut down active illegal MP3 sites, and sends out dozens of cease and desist letters every day, Creighton said. It only takes legal action against students who are repeat offenders, he added.
"It's a dynamic that's hard to get around. You have the age group that's interested in music and very creative people and access to all the bandwidth and computers that they need," Creighton said.
"We don't think it's unusual to continue to see some problems at the university level, but we are encouraged by the fact that it's dynamically decreased," he said. "The one thing we don't have a good grasp on is what's happening on the intranets, behind the firewalls. We don't have access to that. But we have anecdotal evidence that there's a tremendous problem in that arena."
Whether or not universities are willing to give the RIAA and other enforcement agencies access to intranets remains to be seen. If they do, it's a good bet that many more servers will be shut down, and more students put on notice.
"Each dorm has [its] own little network and so we share MP3s over that," said Mark, a junior in physics, who added that, "I assume that it's illegal to have [MP3s]. But I don't really know."
