The Download Dilemma

Vivendi Universal Entertainment and Universal Music Group had jointly developed the Automated Copyright Notification System (ACNS), which provides a technical way for any network service provider to process infringement notices from music and movie companies, thus saving time and money. ACNS automatically restricts or shuts down Internet access for alleged violators. UCLA modified the ACNS technology and policy assumptions (to conform to the university’s privacy rights policy) and deployed a “quarantine” approach based on a two-strike policy that would give students a chance to defend themselves. When the university is notified of an infringement, the quarantine approach first blocks the offending computer from file-sharing.

“The quarantine was for the machine,” says Kenn Heller ’77, associate director of UCLA’s Center for Student Programming. “If a student needed to do research [on off-campus Web sites], they could go to the computer lab in the residence hall. We felt the students’ rights were being maintained.”

At the same time, the system electronically sends a letter by e-mail to the offending computer, which explains to the student using that machine how to lift the quarantine. If it is the first offense, UCLA requires the student to take down allegedly infringing material identified in a copyright complaint and acknowledge that he or she has removed it, without admitting liability of any kind.

If the conditions are met, Heller says the student can electronically remove the quarantine. But for repeat offenses, the student must first meet with Heller to discuss what happened. Heller then decides what penalties are appropriate under the Student Conduct Code, which can range from referring the case to a student-conduct council to requiring the student to take a seminar on ethical decision-making. Heller says only one instance went that far, when he had to suspend a student for an academic quarter for more than two violations.

Hollywood measures UCLA’s success not by the number of violation notices students receive but by the number of repeat offenders. In the two years that UCLA has had the notification system, there was only the one repeat offender Heller suspended in the 2004/2005 academic year, says Richard Atkinson, vice president of global anti-piracy strategy and operations at the Walt Disney Studios. “That is a pretty good step,” he says. “If students understand you can and will be caught, it hopefully will institute some values that will carry on.”

In truth, there’s not much any institution can do to protect its student body, because in the shadowy world of cyberspace, someone is always watching and waiting. The moment a student downloads a copyright-protected tune or movie without paying for it, a number uniquely identifying that computer can be captured by one of the entertainment industry’s hired guns who search the Web looking for digital content. If caught, kids may just get a warning that they’ve violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). If they’ve downloaded and shared enough songs or movies to be considered “egregious” violators — the studios won’t say exactly how many shared downloads trip the wire —they can be punished by a $500,000 fine and five years in jail.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade group that represents music companies, has filed suit against more than 17,000 people. Since the RIAA started suing students a year ago, 1,000 users on college and university networks have been sued. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) says it has filed “several hundred” lawsuits against individuals for piracy, although it doesn’t know how many of those are students, since November 2004.

Last May, five UCLA students were sued by the RIAA for using i2hub, a file-sharing program that enabled users to download music over the high-speed Internet-2 network available at many colleges and universities. A sixth student received a subpoena in September.

It’s unlikely that the young people caught in these organizations’ sights shared downloads because they wanted to make like Bonnie and Clyde. Today’s young adults grew up during a digital revolution where they learned that information on the Internet is free, or should be. A November 2005 report, “Teen Content Creators and Consumers,” by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that “most teen downloaders think that getting free music is easy and it’s unrealistic to expect people not to do it.”

Published Apr 1, 2006 12:00 PM