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The music and recording industries sent out letters this month asking 2,300 colleges and universities around the country, including UC Berkeley, to clamp down on students sharing copyright-protected songs and movies over the Internet. 

UC Berkeley’s Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Systems Jack McCredie acknowledges that the practice is widespread on campus, but says there is little he can do to prevent it. 

“I believe the letter they sent, that a lot of this is going on,” McCredie said. “What I have a problem with is understanding what we can do.” 

While the university has several regulations on the books prohibiting piracy of copyright-protected works, McCredie said, students’ and employees’ right to privacy prevents the university from closely monitoring individuals’ on-line activity and hunting down violators. 

“Obviously, now, we have a tension,” he said. 

Still, UC Berkeley spokesperson Janet Gilmore said the university was able to identify 73 students who illegally downloaded files last year. She said the university issued warnings and the offenders stopped the practice. 

Alex Branigan, a cognitive 

sciences major at UC Berkeley, logs on to the Morpheus Website to download music. The music and film industries are pressuring universities to stop the practice. 

But students say that music and video file-sharing, through popular web services like KaZaa and Morpheus, is rampant and likely to continue. 

“People want their music and episodes of South Park,” said third-year UC Berkeley student Augustine Chun. 

Oliver Gettell, also a third-year, said the high-speed networks in the dorms only make the process easier and more inviting. 

Film and video industry representatives, who estimate that at least 2.6 billion files are illegally downloaded from the Internet every month, said it is the high speed networks that make college campuses particularly worrisome. 

“The wonderful things they put on campus are being misused,” said Richard Taylor, vice president of public affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America, one of four organizations that signed the letter to universities this month. 

The Recording Industry of Association of America, which has launched a national advertising campaign on the file-sharing issue featuring music stars like Britney Spears, also signed the October letter to 2,300 universities. The National Music Publishers’ Association and the Songwriters Guild of America added their names as well. 

Taylor said the film industry has not compiled an estimate of the amount of money it loses annually from illegal file-sharing. But he said Hollywood loses $3 to $4 billion per year from traditional piracy. 

Digital theft could become a far worse problem than traditional piracy, he argued. The digital process is more attractive because it does not involve an illicit tape or street transaction, he noted, and unlike a third- or fourth-generation videotape, a digital copy involves no loss of quality. 

Taylor said that while movie stars may not feel the effects of piracy, gaffers, lighting technicians and other members of film crews will ultimately suffer. 

“It is the rank-and-file folks who will bear the brunt of this,” he said. “It’s not a victimless activity.” 

The university letter calls on schools to take four steps on the file-sharing issue: inform students of their “moral and legal responsibilities,” outline which practices are forbidden on campus, “monitor compliance” and “impose effective remedies against violators.” 

Taylor declined to suggest specific methods for monitoring compliance or imposing remedies, but the letter mentioned a recent move by the U.S. Senate to block access to file-sharing services for its network users. 

UC Berkeley’s McCredie said he is not considering a block on KaZaa or other services. 

“I don’t really think you can,” he said. “There are legal uses of KaZaa...There are many bands out there giving away their stuff.” 

But McCredie said the university is working to beef up campus education on the issue, focusing on the issue during freshman orientation sessions and drafting a campus-wide letter it plans to send out in the near future. 

In addition to education, he said, UC Berkeley complies with the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law protects universities from liability if illegally-downloaded files are found on their networks, but requires schools to take action against students or employees who repeatedly break the law. 

A university is not required to monitor student activity under the Digital Millennium Act, but must take action if a copyright owner informs it of an illegal download by someone on its network. 

McCredie said copyright owners only sporadically inform UC Berkeley of a violation. He said the university, after a speedy investigation, quickly cuts off network access to any alleged violator and then provides the student or staffer with due process.  

Most students and staff, he said, plead ignorance, acknowledge their errors and pledge not to illegally download again. 

Contact reporter at 

scharfenberg@ 

berkeleydailyplanet.net