P2P File Sharing on Campus: The Battle Isn't Over

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P2P File Sharing on Campus: The Battle Isn't Over

2/8/2008

By Doug Gale

This month's column was triggered by a number of separate news articles that have come across my desk in the last two months. Taken together, they show, I believe, trends emerging in the battle that has been raging for years between the recording industry and higher education over student piracy of music and movies.

Exhibit 1: Kids Don't Want CDs Anymore
The Jan. 12 issue of the Economist magazine included a report on the music industry that contained the following anecdote. "In 2006 EMI, the world's fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free."

Exhibit 2: People Aren't Buying CDs Anymore
The same article in the Economist pointed out that the music-recording industry is in trouble. In 2007 their sale of CDs, which in 2006 accounted for 80 percent of their sales, fell like a brick. In the United States, sales were down 19 percent. Even though paid digital downloads increased, the growth did not come close to making up for the lost revenue, and the growth of legal digital downloads appears to be slowing. The smallest of the major labels are struggling, and all of the majors have been cutting costs severely. Compounding the plunge, as artists receive less marketing, they seek alternatives, such as touring, merchandising, and independent distributors.

Exhibit 3: The Recording Industry Is Still Seeking a Legal Remedy
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) still regularly sends letters to colleges and universities charging students with piracy and threatening legal action. The letters generally accuse Internet addresses of violation, request the institution to send them to the student assigned that address, and usually ask for $3,000 to $5,000 from the student to avoid a lawsuit.

From the nstitution's perspective the problem is that the student is presumed guilty even though it could have been another computer assigned to that address or another computer sharing the Internet connection or another student using the someone else's computer.

Resistance to these suits is beginning to emerge. In December 2007, the Oregon Attorney General filed an appeal in U.S. District Court calling for an immediate investigation of the evidence presented by the RIAA when it subpoenaed the identities of 17 students at the University of Oregon who allegedly infringed music copyrights. In January the University of Washington refused to pass 16 letters from the RIAA on to students until they can identify the students at fault.