University sophomore "Tom" may not look like a criminal. In the eyes of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), however, he -- like thousands of other college students -- is a wanted man. Tom's crime? Using file-sharing programs like Kazaa or Morpheus to download music and movies.
Tom is one of thousands of individuals whose behavior is being targeted in the RIAA's recent file-sharing crackdown. Last April, the RIAA sued four college students who allegedly provided their peers with file-sharing services similar to Napster. This July, the RIAA took their anti-file-sharing actions even further, filing at least 900 subpoenas to universities and Internet providers and commanding them to release information about Kazaa users.
Combating illegal file-sharing on Tufts' campus is a daunting task. According to a questionnaire administered to the University's incoming freshmen, 19 percent of the class of 2007 download MP3 or other media files from the internet "several times a day." 18 percent do so "at least once a day," and 28 percent do so "once a week or more."
University campuses are prime targets to the RIAA for several reasons, one of which is the technological capabilities of modern campus communications networks. Thanks to the state-of-the-art internet connection technology offered at many institutions, college students can download and share media files with ease and speed. Therefore, the University atmosphere -- however unintentionally -- facilitates file-sharing.
Associate Professor of Sociology Henry Rubin teaches Introduction to Mass Media, which includes the issue of file-sharing and its impact on community and culture.
"Large bandwidth on campuses makes it easy for file-sharing to center around campuses," Rubin said.
Cutting back on available bandwidth is not a viable solution to the file-sharing problem. Although doing so would slow down and perhaps deter illegal file downloads, it would also slow down and complicate other, perfectly legal internet activities.
Additionally, large bandwidth can be a factor in attracting prospective students to universities like Tufts. "From a campus point of view, [bandwidth]...will be one of those things that, if made available at full capacity, will be an attraction to the best students in a competitive market," Rubin said.
Leslie Tolman, Director of Enterprise IT Infrastructure for Tufts Computing and Communications Services (TCCS), is one of several University staff members who work with the Dean of Students Office to deal with peer-to-peer networking, or file sharing, and its concomitant issues.
"There is a lot of file sharing activity at Tufts which is in no way illegal," Tolman said. As the previously cited statistics indicate, however, not-so-legal file-sharing does take place, and the University frowns upon it: "Should Tufts receive a subpoena, the University will not be in a position to intervene on behalf of students who are being investigated," Tolman said.
When alerted to the fact that one of its students has been involved in transferring or distributing copyrighted music, films, or software, Tufts is "required to remove the cited material from the Tufts network."
To deal with file sharing activity that violates the University's Responsible Use Policy for electronic resources (which specifically prohibits copyright violations), Tolman said that Tufts relies on "existing processes [that have been] in place for a while now."
Using a standard process, TCCS isolates the identified computer, restricting access to the Tufts network and notifying the student who registered the machine, Tolman said. "The student is required to remove the copyrighted material or provide proof that the accusation is false."
The University recently administered a questionnaire addressing file sharing habits to the class of 2007. The findings -- the first statistics of this sort to be gathered by the administration -- are below.
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Once the accused student has either removed the offending files or proven his or her innocence, Tolman said, "we respond to the original complainant with an outcome and unrestrict the student's computer."
Students have positive reactions to this policy. "It was really smart the way Tufts handled things last year -- the 'slap on the wrist,'" senior Nico Juber said, in reference to an incident in which several of her friends were cited for downloading movies through file-sharing services. Juber added that her friends "stopped [illegally downloading] after that, once they realized what they were doing."
Had Juber's friends not modified their file-sharing behavior, they would have been referred to the Dean of Students' office for further disciplinary action.
Tufts' process for disciplining offenders is not as drastic as that proposed by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch (R), who suggested in June that technology experts develop programs to damage or destroy the computers of illegal file-sharers.
"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said in a Senate session.
The RIAA's disciplinary method falls somewhere in between Tufts' and Hatch's. According to federal copyright law, the RIAA can impose fines of $150,000 per illegally shared song -- an amount that could devastate already cash-strapped college students, many of whom cite financial reasons for their reliance upon file-sharing in the first place.
"As a college student I don't have a lot of money, and there is no way I would be able to buy all of the records of the artists whose music I have downloaded," Tom said.
Rising CD prices coupled with insubstantial material are a common complaint among college students who turn to file-sharing. According to Rubin, students are sick of paying for "over-priced CDs and the album format where you get a single and ten duds."
Within the university demographic, the RIAA's crackdown has been met with varying degrees of compliance. Two subpoenaed Boston-area institutions, MIT and Boston College, have declined to release the names of those students the RIAA accuses of illegal file-sharing, citing objections to the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a controversial anti-piracy measure that allows music companies to issue subpoenas without a judge's approval.
In an e-mail statement cited by the Boston Globe, MIT information services director James Bruce said that the terms of the subpoena's filing did not comply with the terms of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which allows the schools ample time to notify the accused students. Bruce asserted that the subpoena's issuance "did not allow MIT time to send any notice as the law requires."
MIT's stance, however, does not mean that the institution is soft on file-sharers. In addition to stating that it would cooperate with any subpoena that allowed them to contact the accused students before releasing their information, the university uses a program called Stopit to combat piracy. The program sends warning e-mails to students who commit copyright violations. Boston College's administration has also indicated that it would comply with properly filed subpoenas, and spokesman Jack Dunn told the Boston Globe that "[Boston College has] never shielded students from the consequences of copyright infringement."
In fact, Boston College is one of several institutions (among them DePaul and University of California, Berkeley) to incorporate file-sharing awareness into its 2003 freshman orientation programs. All of these institutions have received subpoenas.
Though Tufts has not officially incorporated file-sharing awareness into its orientation program, Tolman said that the RIAA's recent crackdown has prompted TCCS to become "even more committed to communication, intermediation, and education."
"The RIAA's increased attention on universities hasn't affected any of our policies, we have made some changes in how we educate students about copyright, and how students who are found to have violated copyright law are adjudicated by the Dean's office," she said.
Rubin predicts that the RIAA's crackdown "will scare a whole lot of people into restricting or discontinuing [their] use of file sharing programs."
Tolman agrees: "Change is already afoot, witness the number of fee-based music services that provide a way to download -- usually higher quality -- music files legally," she said.
Students, however, are more reserved in their outlooks: "It will be impossible for the RIAA to stop file sharing," Tom said. "As soon as one sharing site is shut down, ten more will spring up to replace it."
Stay tuned: tomorrow's Daily will feature an in-depth look file-sharing's implications for Tufts' community of musicians and the changing face of the record industry.
