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October 21, 2008, 01:28 PM ET
(Illegal) Access Hollywood: Universities and the Movie Industry Debate Piracy
Universal City, Calif. — Cheering and applause overwhelmed speakers here at the 2008 Internet Entertainment Workshop, a “summit” convened today by the movie industry and large university systems to discuss the divisive issues of college students downloading music and video, possibly illegally and probably aided by university network services. There were full-throated shouts of joy, and the sounds of people jumping from their seats.
Well, that was actually from the boisterous motivational seminar going on next door at the hotel (“Are you ready to change your life?”). These hotel walls at the Universal City Hilton are thin.
In the Internet workshop, the mood was more somber, despite efforts by the Motion Picture Association of America, which convened the meeting, to find common ground between the two sides. “This workshop is designed to improve relationships,” said Stewart McLaurin, the MPAA’s executive vice-president for education. “The American system of higher education and the motion picture industry are perhaps our country’s greatest exports to the world. We are the faces of America.”
Bob Pisano, the MPAA’s chief operating officer, added: “You in the universities are on the leading edge. You have the high-speed bandwidth networks and the perfect demographic.” He meant students. “We have to figure out a way to marry the opportunities that technology gives us with the protection of intellectual property. We have to develop a digital conscience,” Mr. Pisano added.
Difficulties began to emerge as the workshop got under way, however. An official from the California State University system, one of the workshop’s sponsors, said during a coffee break that institutions do not want to get into policing and spying. “If we do it to students, what’s to stop us doing it to faculty?” he asked. “And won’t that have a chilling effect on academic freedom?”
And during a panel discussion, students from the University of Southern California pointed out that they often pay a lot of money to Disney, Universal, and other movie studios to see movies in the theater. Once they’ve done that, the students said, it seems OK to them to download a film if they want to see it again. —Josh Fischman
Categories: Campus-Piracy
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