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Who saw The Departed and did not need to rush home and download "Shipping Up to Boston"? Did that music come from a CD bought at Best Buy, perhaps? Probably not. More than likely, it came from some peer-to-peer program of choice and was downloaded for free. No waiting in lines, searching through CDs, or spending money. An iPod certainly does not come cheap, so it is understandable to not want to spend more money filling it up. The only drawback to this scenario, however, is that peer-to-peer downloading is illegal, and Congress has something to say about it.
This week, the House of Representatives revisited the high-profile issue of multimedia piracy on college campuses throughout the country. With the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) fighting on behalf of the multimedia industry, thousands of students have been reported for downloading movies and music illegally. The House's proposal would examine a list of the 25 most reported universities, which would then be required to install technology that would prevent, or restrain, students from transferring, sharing, and downloading music and movies illegally. While Boston College does not appear on this list, both the University of Massachusetts (9) and Boston University (3) do.
There are strong implications about what this could mean for students across America. For universities, the lobbying war with the RIAA and MPAA has proven mostly futile. Major Internet service providers (such as AT&T and AOL) are not being forced to abide by the same regulations imposed on colleges. Therefore, there will be harsher restrictions on students when they are at school than when they are at home. This sends mixed signals, making it seem normal for students to continue downloading illegally when they get back to school.
BC has had students in the past who have been reported for violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Interim Dean for Student Development Paul Chebator said, "[When] we get a complaint from an RIAA agency, they send us an IP address. BC will not release the [student's name] unless he or she has been subpoenaed."
In the past, six or seven students have been subpoenaed, Chebator said, though they settled out of court for about $9,000.
It is the RIAA's reserved right to claim up to $150,000 in damages per song. With thousands of songs usually on students' iPods, the possible damages can become astronomical. Of the few BC students who have been caught, most of the accused have settled out of court.
If a student is reported, but not subpoenaed, BC's law office will forward the message to the technology department, which will then request the removal of the violating files on the student's computer. After a second offense, disciplinary actions will be taken and the student will be required to meet with an Office of the Dean for Student Development official.
Even with the risk, Chebator can understand why students do it. "Most students understand [illegal downloads are] wrong, but everyone thinks it is ok because so many people are doing it," he said.
While some universities are cutting bandwidth to combat the sharing of illegal media, it remains undisclosed whether BC is taking the steps to inhibit such conduct. BC's Web site, however, does offer information on the do's and don'ts of downloading media from the Internet. The Web site goes on to describe how, without explicit approval, the downloading of copyrighted media is illegal and punishable by law. More information is available at www.bc.edu/legalsharing.
With so many regulations put in place, there is a question of why it is so easy, after nearly two decades of regular Internet use, to download music and other copyrighted material. One would think that limitations and preventions would have already been put in place. But with this exponential increase in Internet use, more and more Web sites, programs, and applications have become available, it is next to impossible to keep them all monitored at the same time. Now, with the advent of peer-to-peer technologies such as BitTorrent, the content distributed is no longer server-side. Virtually anyone on the Internet can share any file, at any time, from any place. Files are transferred from personal computer to personal computer. At many universities, the networks have become increasingly vulnerable to large-scale distributions of copyrighted material.
Regardless of how much pressure is put on universities, illegal downloading, transferring, and sharing will continue. BC does, however, encourage the use of legal downloading services such as iTunes and Napster or the purchase of CDs.
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