COLLEGES MAY PAY THE PIPER TO LEGALIZE MUSIC DOWNLOADS.Byline: Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - University students who illegally download songs at the risk of facing whopping entertainment-industry lawsuits might be able to share music legally by next year. About a dozen universities - no California participants currently are known - are discussing ways to pay legal online music providers themselves and pass the cost onto students in fees. The move would allow students to download, mix, burn and share music just as millions already are doing - but lawfully. Penn State University President Graham Spanier Graham B. Spanier is the 16th and current president of the Pennsylvania State University. He succeeded Joab Thomas on September 1, 1995. During his tenure the campus has expanded considerably, including the creation of the Schreyer Honors College, the College of Information , in announcing the pending pilot programs Tuesday, said the aim was to make the ``illegal legal.'' The recording industry estimates about 2.6 billion music files are illegally downloaded each month. Recording Industry Association of America President Carey Sherman on Tuesday blamed a 15.8 percent decline in record sales over the first six months of 2003 on what he and others in the entertainment industry call piracy. Sherman and Spanier are co-chairmen of a joint committee of representatives from higher education higher education Study beyond the level of secondary education. Institutions of higher education include not only colleges and universities but also professional schools in such fields as law, theology, medicine, business, music, and art. and the entertainment industry trying to develop collaborative solutions to address music piracy on campus. RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America, Washington, DC, www.riaa.com) A membership association of music recording companies. Its goal is to promote the record label industry and protect the rights of copyright owners. It was a major contributor to the SDMI digital distribution system. officials said they expect to file ``hundreds'' of lawsuits within the coming weeks based on the more than 800 subpoenas served in July to individual users. In the meantime Adv. 1. in the meantime - during the intervening time; "meanwhile I will not think about the problem"; "meantime he was attentive to his other interests"; "in the meantime the police were notified" meantime, meanwhile , students and other file sharers who accuse the entertainment industry of unfairly blaming them for poor record sales and invading their privacy rights are striking back en masse en masse adv. In one group or body; all together: The protesters marched en masse to the capitol. [French : en, in + masse, mass. with a tool called ``RIAA Radar.'' ``RIAA Radar'' is essentially a search engine that lets music purchasers see if an album was released by a recording industry association label or if the album is - as radar users call it - ``RIAA-safe.'' ``I think they're just going down the wrong path here. They need to embrace the technology for what it can do,'' said Michael Weiss Michael Weiss can refer to one of several people:
Weiss blamed the recording industry's own mass subpoenas for falling CD sales. Sherman, however, said he is not worried about alienating young music listeners. ``Did the cable industry worry about alienating cable users when they went after people who steal it?'' he asked. ``These people have no right to free music.'' Motion Picture Association of America President Jack Valenti said he was dismayed by his own conversations with students who he said showed little regard for the impact downloading copyrighted music and movies has on artists and other industry employees. As for the joint committee co-chaired by Sherman and Spanier, Valenti said, ``I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. how much good it's going to do, but we're trying.'' Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Freedom Foundation in San Francisco, called the university licensing with legitimate online music and movie services ``a step in the right direction.'' ``The attempt to work out something with the universities where they license and use on campus is a good thing, and if successful they should share it with the rest of the world,'' Schultz said. In the meantime, university campuses are following their own guidelines, some inserting anti-piracy warnings into student orientations and others - such as the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission - issuing mass warning e-mails to students. Carol Mauch, USC's associate general counsel, declined to discuss what steps the university has taken to deal with illegal student downloading, saying only that USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. follows all applicable laws. Lisa Friedman, (202) 662-8731 lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com |
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