Wednesday, March 5, 2003

Film Studio Sends Hundreds of Letters Alleging Illegal Downloading to Colleges By BROCK READ Campus technology directors are scrambling anew to comply with copyright laws after a major movie studio stepped up its pressure on student downloaders by issuing an unprecedented number of cease-and-desist orders. On Friday, Universal Studios lodged e-mail complaints with an unknown number of institutions across the nation, citing the IP addresses of machines on which it says films under the company's copyright were shared illegally. Campus network administrators who traded reports in an e-mail discussion forum said the lists of machines were lengthy. The University of Maryland at College Park was notified of 155 offending computers, while the University of Wisconsin at Madison was asked to investigate activity on 127 machines. Since Friday, however, neither Maryland nor Wisconsin has received additional complaints from Universal. Universal representatives did not respond to requests for information or comment. The e-mail notifications were far more extensive than those that record and movie studios have previously sent to colleges. On an average day, Maryland receives allegations about only two or three computers' being used for illegal downloading of copyrighted material, according to Rodney J. Petersen, the university's director of information technology planning and policy. College computing officials said that complying with so many cease-and-desist orders is a massive task because officials must respond individually to each one. Network administrators must first track the IP addresses to specific computers and ask the machines' owners whether they have been downloading files illegally. Many admit that they have. But computing officials remain wary of disciplining alleged offenders whose computers might have been used by friends or breached remotely. At Maryland and Wisconsin, officials provide accused offenders with information on copyright law and campus fair-use policy, and present them with Universal's cease-and-desist directives. "It has been a lot of work for us," said Brian Rust, communications manager for information technology at Wisconsin. Mr. Rust said that by Friday afternoon the university had tracked and contacted the owners of only 12 of the 127 machines cited by Universal. While some of the cited computers belong to students using the campus network, others are likely machines run by faculty and staff members, according to Mr. Rust. The cease-and-desist orders came as a surprise to technology officers, who said they received no advance notification of Universal's plans, either from the studio or from the Motion Picture Association. In December, the Recording Industry Association of America e-mailed Graham B. Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University at University Park, to announce plans to intensify enforcement of copyright policies, but information technologists said the promise has been largely unrealized. Campus computing officials say Friday's burst of activity does not appear to have been repeated Monday or Tuesday, but officials at universities such as Maryland are privately discussing plans for responding to the Universal notifications and similar orders that may follow. "We are carefully evaluating our policies and procedures in light of the increase in volume of certain complaints," said Mr. Peterson. Mr. Rust said that colleges may now have to treat movie downloading with the same focus as they do music file-sharing. "Universal is just one studio, so certainly other studios may follow suit," he added. Background articles from The Chronicle: Lawmakers Demand That Colleges Crack Down on Illegal File Sharing (2/27/2003) Record Industry Has No Plan to Seek Names of Students Trading Copyrighted Songs (2/14/2003) Recording Industry Plans to Accelerate Complaints About Illegal File Sharing (1/3/2003) Privacy Advocates Warn Colleges Not to Monitor Content of File Sharing (12/6/2002) Higher-Education Organizations Urge a Crackdown on Illegal File-Sharing (10/25/2002) New Company Besieges Colleges With Notices About Copyright Violations (11/30/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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