Thursday, August 26, 1999
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U. of Oregon Student Is Convicted of Serving Up Pirated Software and MusicBy KELLY McCOLLUM
A student who was turned in by computing officials at the University of Oregon has been convicted of serving up thousands of pirated computer programs, movies, and music recordings from a Web site on the institution's network. Jeffrey Levy, a senior, pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement August 20 in U.S. District Court in Eugene,
Officials traced the traffic to Mr. Levy's Web site, which contained thousands of recordings and commercial software applications, all freely available to anyone who cared to download them. The university then notified the local U.S. Attorney's office, which investigated and then charged Mr. Levy. While it is unusual for a university to turn in one of its students for copyright violations, Oregon's director of computing, Joanne Hugi, says the institution's actions were guided by its acceptable-use policy for computing resources. The policy prohibits the copying of proprietary software and states that such copying can result in "criminal prosecution or a civil suit for copyright infringement, or both." Sean Hoar, an assistant U.S. attorney who worked on the case, coordinates a group of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies that concentrates on electronic crime. He says he had contacted the university before the incident to let administrators know that the government was interested in assisting with computer-related crimes. Mr. Hoar says his group works with organizations that provide Internet access to large numbers of people. Given the large number of student users at universities, he says, "we knew that there was a possibility that there might be that kind of activity taking place." Included on Mr. Levy's Web site were recordings in the MP3 format, which allows music to be stored compactly but at a high quality. "MP3's" are popular among students and others as a way of trading music over the Internet. Illegal MP3 sites let users download songs and whole albums without paying for them. Ms. Hugi says she has occasionally seen other incidents involving illegal MP3's on the campus network. In those cases, she says, "we've contacted the student -- typically we get cooperation and the students take them down." But, she says, such incidents have usually involved only a few files that were not being made available to the public, as were those on Mr. Levy's site. "We've had minor incidents before, but never anything with this significance," says Ms. Hugi. During a typical two-hour period, officials say, Mr. Levy's site transmitted 1.7 gigabytes of data. "This appeared to be a crime," Ms. Hugi says. "In that case, we alert the authorities." While students may find MP3's to be an innocuous form of entertainment, colleges and universities have cause to take them seriously. "Copyright violation is a federal crime," says Sheldon E. Steinbach, general counsel at the American Council on Education. "You're obligated as a citizen to uphold the law, and if it's your facilities that are being utilized, you probably have a greater incentive," he says. "You may have liability yourself if you fail to act." Mr. Steinbach thinks Mr. Levy's conviction will serve as "a very clear warning to students, faculty members, and administrators across the country that violations of intellectual property have both civil and criminal consequences." Ms. Hugi also hopes to find a positive outcome to the incident. "I think we'll be thinking of how to use this to better educate the campus community on what's legal and not legal, but also the consequences of their actions." Mr. Levy, who is scheduled to be sentenced November 2, faces a penalty of up to three years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
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Copyright © 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education