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June 07, 2007, 02:04 PM ET
Moving Off the Most-Wanted List
When the Recording Industry Association of America released its recent list of 25 institutions plagued by piracy, some of the colleges named on the list were confused by their placement. Others were angry. And plenty of the institutions were probably at least a bit embarrassed.
But embarrassment can be a great motivator. And according to the music-industry trade group, several of the institutions that placed on the worst-offenders list have drastically cut incoming copyright-infringement notices since being publicly called out.
Ohio University, which topped the RIAA list, made headlines four weeks ago by instituting a campuswide ban on peer-to-peer networking. Since then, the trade group says, the university has received just seven infringement notices from record companies. (Before the ban, Ohio had been getting an average of more than eight notices per day, according to the RIAA list.)
Two other institutions on the list — the University of South Carolina and Seton Hall University — have received no copyright complaints from the music industry since mid-February. After it turned up on the list, South Carolina sent officials to discuss antipiracy strategies with Ginger DeMint, the RIAA’s director of government and industry relations. Now the university is remaking itself as one of the recording industry’s institutional allies: It has devised a “technical literacy” exam that students must pass, sought to bring a legal-downloading service to campus, and bolstered its network-monitoring software, according to The Daily Gamecock.
Eliminating copyright-infringement notices and putting an end to piracy are two different things, of course. But officials at Ohio, South Carolina, and Seton Hall will likely be pleased if their institutions don’t show up on any future worst-offender lists. —Brock Read
Categories: Campus-Piracy
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