Universities get proactive in web piracy fight.

Computer networks at local colleges are enjoying their last few days of peace before throngs of students return from summer vacation. Soon, the country's most prolific music and movie copyright infringers will be back at it.

With their return will come renewed attention to industry efforts to halt the practice--efforts that have shifted to the courts and drawn in colleges and universities that act as Internet service providers.

Reacting to pressure from the two major entertainment industry trade groups--the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America--area colleges and universities are issuing a rash of new warnings to students as the school year approaches.

The associations, which have retained companies to track file-swapping and identify alleged abusers, sent hundreds of violation notices to UCLA during the last school year, notifying the school in its role as the designated ISP that it had to stem the activity.

In response, UCLA will place more restrictions on users of laboratory computers, concentrate on notifying students of copyright infringement more quickly and send out a blitz of anti-piracy messages to students and faculty when they arrive on campus next month.

"I anticipate an increase in the number of notices because of the increased pressure the MPAA and the RIAA are putting on the subject," said Jim Davis, UCLA's vice chancellor of information technology.

The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires ISPs to act to stem illegal file swapping, though once notice is given, the ISP may no longer face legal action.

"If they get a copyright infringement notice from us and take action, they are not liable for the copyright infringement," said Thomas Temple, director of worldwide Internet enforcement at the MPAA.

After settling copyright infringement cases with four students at three universities, all outside California, for between $12,000 and $17,000, the RIAA announced in June it was preparing further suits to be filed in mid-August.

System-wide notice

The entertainment industry's aggressive legal stance prompted the University of California's Office of the President to send out a letter on July 24 instructing all 10 UC schools to "communicate to all students, faculty and staff their responsibility to uphold copyright law,"

In May, UCLA, sent out letters and produced cable television ads warning of the legal risks of copyright infringement. Davis said the letter led to a drop in traffic on the campus network. The school will repeat its spring advertising campaign when students return.

"If we get to them quickly, most people stop quickly," said Davis, noting that the school has not had a repeat offender.

Officials at both UC Riverside and Pepperdine University said they would send letters to students when they return next month. In the case of Riverside, it will be the school's formal communication on the subject.

At Claremont McKenna College, which received 12 notices of copyright infringement last year--mostly in cases involving the downloading of movies--the administration acknowledged the increased pressure from the associations, but is holding fast to a more reactive stance. It will notify students when it is told of an alleged infringement, but will not be sending notices in advance.

Questioning effectiveness

Some school officials doubt the effectiveness of notifications and lawsuits. Pepperdine, which received numerous notifications from Universal Studios last year, questions the entertainment industry's aggressive fining of students.

"That tactic is not working. Coming after us with frees isn't that helpful," said Kathee Robings, Pepperdine's chief operations officer for technology.

The school will have several new educational initiatives in place this year. A representative from Universal Studios will speak to its incoming freshman class about pirac and the school may sell discounted movies at the student store.

For its part, the MPAA says it will keep the pressure on, even with the greater awareness.

"We are keeping our options open, including getting the message out to students," said Temple, who also said there will be a greater number of notifications this school year.

One difficulty of wiping out illegal downloading is locating the perpetrators. Davis said that over the summer, a number of faculty computers and a computer being used at a UCLA conference were hacked from the outside and set up to act as servers offering illegally downloaded entertainment files. He became aware of these cases after receiving a copyright infringement notice but was unable to locate the hackers.

Campus network managers are expected to implement greater network management tools to fight the problem. UCLA, as a result of the summertime hacking, has placed extra restrictions on laboratory computers.

Ranger Online Inc., a Sun Diego-based software company the MPAA uses to track copyright infringement, has been contacted by a number of schools that want to be more proactive in catching copyright scofflaws. "There's going to be more focus on analyzing and blocking the traffic," said Jeremy Rasmussen, founder of Ranger Online.