Tuesday, October 1, 2002

On Behalf of Film Studios, Company Searches for Students Downloading Movies By SCOTT CARLSON Chief information officers and others who attempt to control file sharing on college campuses have a new headache to deal with. MediaForce, a company that tries to stop file sharing on behalf of movie companies, has been patrolling the Internet and flooding some colleges and universities with cease-and-desist requests -- some of them apparently justified. The letters have led colleges to many students who readily admit having downloaded movies that have recently been in theaters, such as Triple X, Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings, and Goldmember, the newest Austin Powers film. Cindy Kester, the assistant director of academic computing at the State University of New York at Binghamton, says that she has gotten about 30 requests from MediaForce since the beginning of the semester. The company is similar to NetPD, which barraged colleges last year with similar notices about songs by Michael Jackson and the rock band Incubus. Officials at institutions complained because NetPD's requests were vague and did not follow the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. MediaForce's requests seem to be in better order than NetPD's, however. As the copyright act requires, they include a statement about the rights of the copyright holder, the name of the offending file, and details about both the time the file was found and its location. They do not have a digital signature -- also required in a provision of the act -- but they do provide a telephone number for Mark Weaver, MediaForce's "director of enforcement." Mr. Weaver did not return calls from The Chronicle. "They're not too good at corresponding," says Jane DelFavero, the network security manager at New York University. She has tried to contact MediaForce several times to complain about the lack of a digital signature on letters she has been sent, but has never received a reply. Once, however, when she complained about factual inaccuracies in the body of the letter, she got a new letter in reply with the errors corrected. She has also never received a request to confirm that files have been taken off line. "In the old days, when infringement was a picture on a Web site, we would follow up more closely," she says. "But now it's more of a one-way thing. They alert us, and we alert the user." Most institutions seem to be following up on the requests. "I think if we were really sticky, we could ask for a digital signature," says David Bantz, the director of technology planning and development at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. "But they are sending them to the right place, and we're finding evidence of what they say is going on." Processing MediaForce's complaints, however, takes a lot of time. "I would say that with the combined resources of me and other people working on it, it takes about half a day" per complaint, Ms. Kester says. Staff members hunt down the student, confront him or her, and set up a hearing with the University Judicial Board. Occasionally, MediaForce's letters do make one request that seems to be outside the law. In a letter to Cornell University, MediaForce asked the university to "terminate any and all accounts that [the student] has through you." After inspecting the letter, Georgia K. Harper, an expert in intellectual-property law and a lawyer for the University of Texas System, says that such a request is not clearly authorized in the digital copyright act. Curiously, several technology officials at universities also note a pattern in a few cases on each campus: The computers of some of the students picked out by MediaForce had been compromised, and a hacker had put the movies on the hard drives. Ms. Kester says she sent a technician to confront one student who had been identified by MediaForce. The student adamantly denied that he had shared files. "Our technical person took a look and sure enough, someone had taken over his machine, installed KaZaA, and was serving a movie off the machine," she says. Following is a letter sent by MediaForce to Cornell University. Elements that could identify the offending student have been deleted. Case ID 174719 - Notice of Claimed Infringement RE: Unauthorized Distribution of the Copyrighted Motion Picture Entitled Spider-Man Dear Tracy Mitrano: We are writing this letter on behalf of Columbia Pictures Industries Inc., ("Columbia Pictures"). As you may know, Columbia Pictures is the owner of copyright and exclusive distribution rights in and to the motion picture entitled Spider-Man. No one is authorized to perform, exhibit, reproduce, transmit, or otherwise distribute the above-mentioned work without the express written permission of Columbia Pictures, which permission Columbia Pictures has not granted to [IP address removed to protect student]. We have received information that an individual has utilized the above-referenced IP address at the noted date and time to offer downloads of the above-mentioned work through a "peer-to-peer" service. The attached documentation specifies the location on your network where the infringement occurred, the number of repeat violations recorded at this specific location, as well as any available identifying information. The distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted motion pictures constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 106(3). This conduct may also violate the laws of other countries, international law, and/or treaty obligations. Since you own this IP address, we request that you immediately do the following: 1) Disable access to the individual who has engaged in the conduct described above; and 2) Terminate any and all accounts that this individual has through you. On behalf of Columbia Pictures, owner of the exclusive rights to the copyrighted material at issue in this notice, we hereby state that we have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by Columbia Pictures, its respective agents, or the law. We also hereby state that we believe the information in this notification is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that MediaForce is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive rights being infringed as set forth in this notification. Please contact us at the above listed address or by replying to this email should you have any questions. We appreciate your assistance and thank you for your cooperation in this matter. In your future correspondence with us, please refer to Case ID 174719. Your prompt response is requested. Respectfully, Mark Weaver, Director of Enforcement MediaForce, Inc. (212) 925-9997 ------------------------------ Infringment Detail: Infringing Work: Spider-Man Filename: [TMD]Mr.Deeds.(Legion).TS(2of2) 1.avi First Found: 11 Jul 2002 20:59:4 EDT (GMT -0400) Last Found: 11 Jul 2002 20:59:4 EDT (GMT -0400) Filesize: 74,080k IP Address: [deleted to protect student] IP Port: 6346 Network: Gnutella Protocol: Gnutella Infringing Work: Spider-Man Filename: [tmd]mr.deeds.(legion).ts.(1of2).avi First Found: 11 Jul 2002 20:59:5 EDT (GMT -0400) Last Found: 11 Jul 2002 20:59:5 EDT (GMT -0400) Filesize: 167,000k IP Address: [deleted to protect student] IP Port: 6346 Network: Morpheus Protocol: Gnutella Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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