Wednesday, December 1, 2004

Members of Congress Ask Internet2 to Crack Down on Online Piracy on Its Network By JEFFREY R. YOUNG Printer friendly E-mail article Subscribe Order reprints HEADLINES   U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on interpretation of Title IX Members of Congress ask Internet2 to crack down on online piracy on its network Northwestern U. concludes investigation of sex researcher but keeps results secret Doctors at teaching hospital in California will pay Medicare $2.2-million to settle billing claims Key adviser on federal higher-education policy is leaving to lead college-and-business group Stanford professor wins Grawemeyer Award for Education Foreign students in Britain are largely satisfied with their universities, survey finds Higher education in Canada is not as affordable as many assumed, study concludes Washington Two influential members of Congress want Internet2 to crack down on illegal file trading on its high-speed network. The chairman and the ranking Democrat of a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee have sent a letter to Internet2's president, Douglas E. Van Houweling, asking the organization to report on what it has done to combat online piracy. The letter specifically mentions i2hub, a student-run file-sharing system that makes use of the high-speed network to trade music, movies, and other data (The Chronicle, May 14). Internet2 is an organization of research universities, corporate research centers, and other groups. The consortium's high-speed backbone network is known as Abilene. The November 16 letter was sent a little more than a month after Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, warned in a Congressional hearing that some file traders were taking advantage of Internet2's network, where they are beyond the reach of the music industry's investigators (The Chronicle, October 15). The letter said: "Internet2 networks are generally closed off from copyright owners and we are concerned that this feature will make it more difficult for America's artists and creators to ensure that Internet2 is not being used to traffic in their intellectual property." It was signed by Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, and Howard L. Berman, a Democrat from California. The two are leaders of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. The developers of the research network "are best positioned to proactively confront the piracy risks posed by Internet2," the letter says. It continues: "If the Internet2 consortium is unwilling to prevent piracy on its networks, is it practical to grant access to individuals and organizations outside the Internet2 membership for the sole purpose of enforcing their IP rights?" Alec French, counsel to Mr. Berman, said in an interview on Tuesday that the lawmaker was "trying to be forward-looking about the piracy problem." "Some of the reason why piracy on the current Internet has become such a big problem is that it kind of caught folks by surprise," said Mr. French. "So before Internet2 rolls out fully and maybe becomes a serious contribution to that problem, we have an opportunity to look forward to see if there's a way to prevent that from happening." He said the letter was not necessarily meant as a criticism of Internet2's current practices. "I don't think Mr. Berman has enough information to say if what they're doing is or is not appropriate." Lauren B. Kallens, media manager for Internet2, said that the organization was "currently working on a very comprehensive response to that letter with a goal of submitting a response as quickly as possible." She said she would not discuss details until after the group had sent its response to the subcommittee leaders. "We want to share that directly with them first." She added, however, that "Internet2 does not condone illegal file sharing," which she said "violates the Abilene network's acceptable-use policies." Greg Wood, a spokesman for Internet2, said in an interview in August that it was up to Internet2's members to determine whether Abilene's rules were being followed on issues such as file sharing. "I'm sure that universities, whether they're Internet2 members or not, would take the appropriate actions if their networks were being used improperly, as they have in the past." The issue was brought to the subcommittee's attention during a hearing on campus file sharing in October. Mr. Sherman, the RIAA president, testified that colleges "remain a hotbed of piracy." Internet2 "is an exciting platform for advanced network applications and technologies," he told the subcommittee. "Yet, as with other networks, bad actors have begun to hijack it, threatening to turn a beneficial and promising technology into a tool for piracy." The subcommittee plans to hold another hearing on the issue next year, and the congressmen's letter invited Mr. Van Houweling to participate. Background articles from The Chronicle: Lawmakers Laud Colleges for Efforts to Curb Illegal File Sharing (10/15/2004) College and Record Executives Tell Congress of Steps to Curtail Music Piracy (9/3/2004) Report Briefs Congress on Colleges' Antipiracy Efforts (6/11/2004) Music Denied (4/16/2004) The Downloading Beat Goes On (2/6/2004)