Music piracy still thriving on UO network.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

If downloading music is wrong, a lot of University of Oregon students don't want to be right.

The numbers are down from their peak two years ago, but despite warnings, lawsuits and occasionally having their computer privileges cut off, hundreds of students who are hooked up to the university's computer system still trade in pirated music, DVDs and games.

"It's there. It's easy. I don't really think so much about being sued for thousands or millions of dollars," said one UO freshman who asked not to be identified. Students who use peer-to-peer, also known as P2P, programs such as Morpheus or Kazaa to illegally share or download copyrighted material violate the university's computer-use policy and face disciplinary action if caught.

"I think everyone I know has a P2P program on their computer," the student said during a break in the Hamilton housing complex dining center.

Sharing down but not out

UO officials say they can no more stop all illegal file sharing and downloading than they can keep every student from drinking or taking drugs. But like the continuing fight against substance abuse, the university does what it can to keep students from breaking the law.

Using a combination of technology and education, the university has crimped the flow of shared digital files. Two years ago the flood of file sharing on the UO computer network was so high it almost brought the entire system to a halt; now, such uses take up no more than 10 percent of the network's capacity.

But Norm Myers, the computing services coordinator for the university housing office, said that still means something like 200 or more people do some kind of file sharing or downloading each day and maybe 1,000 each week. He guesses that 70 percent of all students in university housing have peer-to-peer programs on their computers.

That's despite the fact that the housing office staff posted a warning flier over every network plug-in in all university housing before the start of fall term advising students of the consequences of copyright violations. They also sent letters to students' homes over the summer and provided additional information when they checked into the halls.

UO housing director Mike Eyster said those efforts, along with new equipment that limits file sharing traffic, at least has sharply reduced the problem.

"At the same time, I think I'd be kidding myself if I thought what I was doing was the solution for all time," he said. "It would be nice if there were no violations of copyrights, but in the world I live in, there's always going to be some students who commit violations."

Pirates get sued

Universities have been extremely vulnerable to file sharers because they have high-capacity networks that allow large digital files to move quickly, allowing music, videos and games to be downloaded in a few minutes. That's why they were among the first targets when the recording industry began fighting back by threatening to file lawsuits over the theft of copyrighted music.

Since then, the industry has followed through on its threat. The Recording Industry Association of America has sued or sent notices of pending legal action to more than 750 people, and more than 1,000 have signed affidavits promising to cease file sharing after learning their Internet records had been subpoenaed from their Internet service providers.

"A significant proportion of those we have sued so far have been college students," said Jonathan Lamy, communications director for the RIAA. He did not have an exact figure but said college campuses remain a hot spot for music theft.

"Illegal file sharing on campuses is still a problem," he said. "It is a significant portion of the overall piracy picture."

Someone's watching

Students can run afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in two ways: file sharing and downloading. In file sharing, a person using a peer-to-peer program with the sharing function enabled allows others to search for and make copies of any files on his or her hard drive, including music, movies and games but also other files, something the user may not realize.

In downloading, a person searching for a file - say, a song - can find it on someone else's computer and download a copy to their computer. You don't have to share the files on your computer in order to use peer-to-peer programs to find and download music from someone else's computer, but you have to physically turn off the sharing function to prevent it.

Myers said the university spent $50,000 to install equipment that allows him to identify file-sharing traffic on the network, give it a low priority and limit how much takes place. That at least keeps the network from being overwhelmed by illegal file sharing, as it was in the fall of 2001.

With the new equipment, downloading one song now takes 20 minutes or more instead of a couple of minutes. That tends to discourage students accustomed to high-speed transfers.

"There's not the instant gratification," Myers said. "If you want the song, you're going to get it, but you're not going to get it now."

No problem, say students. They just line up the songs they want to download before going to bed, click the mouse and by morning - or, sometimes, much later - they get the music. The program can even continue running while the computer is used for more mundane things, such as studying.

"I can have it on in the background and just do what I do," said another student. "I don't really care how long it takes, as long as I get it."

But both the university and the recording industry regularly monitor Internet use with equipment that can tell what individual users are up to. If Myers catches someone file sharing, he'll give them a "friendly reminder" to cut it out; if the industry catches someone, they end up losing their computer privileges until they've met with the student conduct office to work out an appropriate penalty.

Chris Loschavio, director of student judicial affairs at the UO, said he's sometimes surprised at what students don't know about computers, given that they are the most technologically aware generation ever. He said many don't realize that file sharing opens their hard drives to anyone in the world who wants to look, and many don't even know how to turn the sharing function off.

"Everybody's breaking the law"

Many others do know their ports from their processors and simply don't care that downloading is illegal or think they should have the right to copy anything they find on the Internet.

"It doesn't seem illegal if everybody's doing it," said the student at the Hamilton complex. "It seems like there's something wrong with the law if everybody's breaking the law."

Lamy acknowledges that it's difficult getting young people to understand that taking a song off someone's hard drive is theft.

"It is a challenge, and they are one of the hardest demographic groups to reach," Lamy said.

But he said the industry generally is happy with the efforts being taken by universities to try to rein in illegal sharing and downloading.

A joint committee of higher education and recording industry officials formed last year has made significant inroads on the problem, through a combination of technology and education along the lines followed by the UO.

"We are very encouraged by what universities are doing to address illegal file sharing," Lamy said. "We think there's been a sea change in how university presidents see this."

They aren't the only ones. A November survey by the RIAA showed that 64 percent of those polled understand it's illegal to copy music from other people's computers - up from 37 percent a year earlier - and that 56 percent support the industry's strategy of using lawsuits to protect copyrights.

And that message is reaching college students, even if some don't like what they hear.

"A lot of my friends are shying away from it because we've heard that schools are cracking down," said UO freshman Jacob Ripper, who said he too has sworn off downloading. "But a lot of people still download music. I don't think most people feel it's illegal."