File swapping lawsuits: is your district next? Districts need to create and enforce acceptable P2P trading policies.The Recording Industry Association of America recently mounted a get-tough policy against illegal online file swappers. One of the first 261 lawsuits charged a 12-year-old honors student An honors student is a student in elementary, middle, or high school recognized for achieving high grades. Honors students are recognized on lists published periodically throughout the school year, known as "honor rolls". , who lives in a city housing project apartment in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . She mistakenly believed she was entitled to download any music over the Internet since she purchased a subscription for online file-sharing software. While critics claim the suit was overzealous enforcement by the powerful industry group, the girl's mother acknowledged that her daughter's unwitting actions violated U.S. copyright laws and paid an out-of-court settlement An agreement reached between the parties in a pending lawsuit that resolves the dispute to their mutual satisfaction and occurs without judicial intervention, supervision, or approval. of $2,000. The 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. states that illegal file sharing has become rampant, and such lawsuits may multiply into the thousands. U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song obtained illegally that is on a person's computer. The RIAA settled recent cases for $12,500 to $17,000 each. RIAA officials are blaming file sharing for a 31 percent decline in CD music sales over a three-year period. The gloves are off. File Sharing Revolution Peer-to-peer, or P2P See peer-to-peer and point-to-point. , file sharing was created by the free software Napster, that initiated a revolution in online computing. Rather than share files through centralized locations such as FTP sites, Napster made it possible for individuals to swap files directly with other users. For example, when a user requested a particular song, Napster searched its network to find computers that had that file, and transferred the song from one online machine to the other. While P2P sharing can trade documents, graphics, photographs and software, applied to music the concept became a pop culture sensation. Individuals across the nation collected copyrighted media they had not purchased, and Napster found itself embroiled em·broil tr.v. em·broiled, em·broil·ing, em·broils 1. To involve in argument, contention, or hostile actions: "Avoid . . . in lawsuits that forced it to shut down. However, new legally protected P2P services have since taken its place, including Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh and Morpheus. An estimated 60 million Americans participate in file-sharing networks, and half are teenagers. As one student put it, "File sharing will never go away, and when one method dies, 10 more will sprout up." District Concerns There are countless valuable and legitimate school applications for file sharing, such as exchanging projects with other districts and downloading public files, including archived speeches from Congress and film clips from NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. . However, intentional or inadvertent, illegal file sharing has become a huge problem, and students and staff likely participate at home and in school, particularly in districts that offer high-speed connections. Furthermore, schools that provide laptops for 24-hour use may find that students install software for downloading music, games and movie files. Administrators in the Henrico County, Virg., schools collected student iBooks temporarily so technicians could strip out file-sharing software that was eating up bandwidth in the 42,000-student district. It has become essential to protect school resources against illegal file sharing, make acceptable-use policies explicit, and educate students, staff and parents about new consequences for illegal actions. While some may not know they are breaking the law, a recent Pew study found that a striking 67 percent of users who download music say they do not care whether or not it is copyrighted. The RIAA wants those people to know that they may be subpoenaed, even if they are 12-year-olds. Web Resources * Recording Industry Association of America www.riaa.com * Henrico County Public Schools The Henrico County Public Schools system is a Virginia school division that operates as a functional branch of the Henrico County, Virginia county government, and administers public schools in the county. www.henrico.k12.va.us * Cybercrime cybercrime also known as computer crime Any use of a computer as an instrument to further illegal ends, such as committing fraud, trafficking in child pornography and intellectual property, stealing identities, or violating privacy. .Gov www.cybercrime.gov * Musicunited.org www.musicunited.org * Pew Internet & American Life Project www.pewinternet.org Odvard Egil Dyrli is senior editor and emeritus professor of education at the University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut is the State of Connecticut's land-grant university. It was founded in 1881 and serves more than 27,000 students on its six campuses, including more than 9,000 graduate students in multiple programs. UConn's main campus is in Storrs, Connecticut. . |
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