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Report Shows Universities Curtailing Online Piracy

Posted on: Wednesday, 25 August 2004, 06:00 CDT

By ALEX VEIGA

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Despite evidence that sharing music and movies online remains popular, a report issued Tuesday by a committee of entertainment and university leaders says universities have made strides the past year to curtail online piracy.

The report, submitted to Congress by the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, highlights steps taken by the universities to tackle Internet piracy but offers few details of their effectiveness.

The recording industry has sued more than 3,000 computer users since September in a campaign to stem file-sharing.

Studies differ as to the effectiveness of the campaign, but at any given moment, there are upward of 4 million people in the United States swapping files online, according to Beverly Hills-based BigChampagne, which tracks activity on file-sharing networks.

The authors of the report did not perform a specific analysis of file-sharing at the universities, said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.

So far this year, 185 people at 35 universities were among those snared in the recording industry's lawsuit campaign, according to the report.

Still, the five-page report gave high marks to universities that made changes meant to discourage file-sharing.

"It's quite clear that every university has gotten the message that this is a serious issue and they're all doing something," said Sherman, who is also co-chair of the joint committee. "There really has been a fundamental change."

Over the past year, several universities have addressed file-sharing on campus in different ways.

To date, at least 20 universities, including Pennsylvania State University, the University of Miami and Northern Illinois University, have signed deals with Napster 2.0, Ruckus, RealNetworks Inc. (RNWK) and other licensed download services to provide students with discounted downloading or free music streaming.

Many universities have also made the anti-piracy message a fixture of student orientation sessions. Others, meanwhile, are using technology to filter or block file-sharing over their networks.

A program employed at the University of Florida to block all file-sharing has had the best success, Sherman said.

The joint committee submitted its report to Congress in advance of hearings by the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts scheduled for next month.

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