"Pirating is free, you can find all the songs you'd ever want, and it's very easy to find," freshman Walter Barry said.
Barry was referring to illegal downloading and file-sharing on the Internet, and as the music industry continues its policy of suing copyright violators, students are opting for various strategies to stay out of court.
Over the summer, subpoenas were issued to six Tufts students by the federal district court on behalf of a suit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), according to an Oct. 7 e-mail to students from Dean of Students Bruce Reitman.
The cases against Tufts students - the University is now the fourth Boston-area school to be served lawsuits, following Boston University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - have not made the rest of the student body turn off the computer and rush to the record store.
"The subpoenas don't matter to me," senior Ray Chang said. "I'm going to use the illegal service."
According to a Sept. 21 press release on the RIAA Web site, the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, which includes university leaders, higher education groups, and music and movie executives, sent a report to Congress outlining its efforts to stop pirating.
Hundreds of students at nearly 150 colleges and universities have been sued in the past two years, the report said.
Reitman said he did not know Tufts students would be pursued by the RIAA. The organization found many Tufts IP addresses - unique identification codes assigned to each computer on a network - downloading files illegally. It would be "foolish" to think the six subpoenas already issued would be the last, he said.
Freshman Scott Schreiber said he was not afraid. "You can sue thousands of people, but millions of people do this," he said.
But the lawsuits have made Schreiber reconsider some of his downloading habits. "I'm more afraid to download here because there's more monitoring of a college campus than at home," he said.
Of the six students subpoenaed, Reitman said four have agreed to
financial settlements but is unaware of how the other two cases are proceeding. "At the time of the deadline to comply with the subpoena, we had been informed that four of the IP addresses no longer needed to be disclosed because they resolved the cases," he said.
In his e-mail, Reitman said the RIAA is now investigating people who not only share music and video files but also those who simply download. Instead of pursuing users who download or share the most files, the organization selects users at random - so those who download only a few songs are no less likely to be pursued than those who download and share thousands of files.
Reitman said the University had no say in the organization's choice of targets and had to comply with the court order. "While I'd rather see them go after big-time users, there's no track record that they'll do that," he said.
The lawsuits from the RIAA are meant to be a deterrent, as well, Reitman said. "It's not the settlement amounts," he said. "It's getting the word out there that they're watching."
In an effort to limit the illegal downloading by students, the University signed onto a legal downloading service, Cdigix, last November.
Students can download songs for free on Cdigix using their Tufts ID numbers. The music files cannot be burned onto a CD or transferred to a portable device, though. The songs also only last for one school year before they "time-out." Students can pay $0.89 to have full access to the songs.
Cdigix has arrangements with about 30 schools, including Yale University and the University of Denver.
The program only works on PCs because the current version of Windows Media Player for Apple computers does not support the Digital Rights Management service - a variety of code technologies that limit the use of copyrighted materials - required to install Cdigix.
Freshman Greg Scott summarized the service's problems. "I can't use it on iTunes, I can't download it onto my iPod, the songs only last a year, it doesn't sound as good, and I can't use it on a Mac," he said.
Barry uses Cdigix, but he only found out about the program because he was told by his residential assistant (RA). RAs and orientation leaders were told during training to warn students about illegal downloading.
"My RA had to tell me," Barry said. "Otherwise I would have no idea it was there."
The University does not advertise for Cdigix, Reitman said, because it is not part of Tufts. "It's an off-campus company," he said. "It's something they have to do their own advertising for." Last year Cdigix hired two students to advertise on campus.
Cdigix competes with a wide range of legal and illegal services.
The legal services - which include Napster, iTunes, MusicRebellion, Rhapsody and Ruckus - have different price structures.
Napster subscribers pay $9.95 per month but must pay an additional $5 per month to transfer songs to a portable device. Subscribers get more than 50 commercial-free radio stations and can share files with other members. Napster also allows users to download individual songs for $0.99 and entire albums for $6.95.
Apple's iTunes is available to both PC and Apple users, but recent hacks to the program have made illegal use possible, an issue raised in the Committee's report to Congress. The program myTunes Redux allows iTunes users to copy and download songs from other users' libraries on the same network. Tufts students in the same dorm are on the same network.
MusicRebellion's song prices depend on the demand - the most popular songs are the most expensive.
Rhapsody provides similar services to Napster, including the radio feeds and the option to transfer files to portable devices. Unlike Napster, though, users who pay for the option are given a 10 percent discount on downloads.
Ruckus was tested by students at American University, according to engadget.com, a technology news Web site with a discussion forum. Only 50 percent of students tested the program, and out of those people, 33 percent did not support Ruckus becoming part of the tuition cost because not all students would use the service.
Students complained that Ruckus was not available to Apple users, that it was difficult to navigate, and that there was a poor selection of songs and movies. Students living off-campus also did not have access to the service.
Illegal downloading programs have changed significantly since the days of the original Napster. Programs like LimeWire, eDonkey, Acquisition, and Bit Torrent let users download directly from other users without a central server - an easy RIAA target with previous file sharing programs.
"I can still keep getting music for free through my own programs," senior Ian Beam said. "If I can get it for free, I'm going to do it, just like everyone else. That's what it comes down to."
Beam uses LimeWire for music and DebateRoom.com for music, movies and software. He downloaded McAfee's antivirus software, which usually costs $120, he said.
Students recommended some ways the industries could limit illegal use of music and movies. "Stop overpricing CDs," Schreiber said. "When you start pricing yourself out of your customers' wallets, you start having problems."
The lawsuits do little to make students want to pay the industry for music, he said. "I think suing your target audience is not the best idea."
