Entertainment-industry officials, often using pointed language, argued at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday that most colleges have not taken sufficient steps to discourage students from downloading pirated music and movie files.
At the hearing, held by a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee, the officials intensified their attempts to press colleges to offer campuswide subscriptions to legal downloading services, and to install software that can block students from trading copyrighted material on peer-to-peer networks.
About 140 institutions have signed up with such legal services, and more than 60 now use the industry’s preferred blocking tool. But many campus administrators—citing, among other factors, concerns about privacy and academic freedom—have been reluctant to restrict network traffic or to encourage students to use a particular online music service. See The Chronicle’s full coverage.
