Schools broaden efforts to stop piracy
As the school year approaches, several Boston-area colleges are intensifying efforts to prevent illegal downloading on campus, including hosting sessions on the perils of pirating and offering students free, legal means of getting songs.
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst ranked sixth in the nation for copyright complaints in February. In the past year and a half, the school has begun offering free downloads to students, but school officials are still struggling to find a panacea for a problem that has plagued campuses nationwide for the past several years.
"I thought we were pretty strenuous before, but it hasn't worked," said John Dubach, the school's chief information officer. "This whole system has got to change somehow. There's got to be some better understanding of the problem."
UMass is among a growing number of schools using Ruckus, which offers downloadable media to universities in exchange for advertising rights. The company saw its number of affiliate schools skyrocket in the past year, from about two dozen to more than 130.
As universities attempt to find solutions, the stakes for illegal downloading are increasing. The Recording Industry Association of America has continued its campaign against piracy, slamming UMass-Amherst, for instance, with 897 copyright-infringement complaints last school year by February, up from 365 the previous year.
Lawmakers, nettled by persistent complaints from entertainment-industry executives, might reopen debate about cutting off federal student aid to institutions that fail to crack down on piracy, a measure that was briefly considered in the Senate last month.
"We're kind of under the gun now," said Charles A. Wight, associate vice president for academic affairs and undergraduate studies at the University of Utah, who testified before a congressional committee in June. "Everybody's scrambling to stay off the lists of offenders."
In their attempt to combat the problem, UMass leaders plan to fill residence halls with posters outlining the legal consequences of piracy, Dubach said.
"We're hoping it will attract their attention," he said. "This is one of the issues of your typical late teenager who says, 'It can't happen to me.' "
But the school's alternative might not be working. Dubach said the school is looking at alternatives to Ruckus because promoting the service does not appear to have reduced violations.
Elvis Mendez, a senior at UMass-Amherst, said he doubted the educational efforts would stop students from continuing to illegally share files.
"It's not something they view as harmful or stealing," Mendez said.
At Brandeis, where 15 students were sent Recording Industry Association complaints last spring, orientation will feature lectures on "digital self-defense," including a session titled "Don't Get Sued." The school also plans to host several lectures on the topic over the academic year.
"There's just this total disconnect," said Perry Hanson, vice president and vice provost for libraries and information technology at Brandeis. "We tell them: 'You may believe that it's a bunch of hokey malarkey, but the fact is you can pay penalties and go to jail. You've got to be careful of your exposure.' "
Harvard, which school officials said receives few complaints from the Recording Industry Association, limits violations by educational efforts and enforcing strict punishments for offenders, said Daniel D. Moriarty, the school's chief information officer. A student caught violating the school's rules twice loses network privileges for an entire year.
"The approach we have taken is not one getting into the technical nuclear arms race, which frankly we don't think really works, but to have a reasonable but very rigorous policy," Moriarty said.
At other schools, including Michigan State University, the legal route has proved to be popular and an effective means of reducing digital piracy, said Katherine Ball, communications manager for academic computing and network services at Michigan State.
The school partnered with Ruckus last year, and since that time, the number of complaints sent to the university has plummeted, Ball said.
"It's definitely worked," Ball said. "Having a legal alternative that we can advertise has basically solved the problem."
Landlords in the area have also included free Napster music service as a part of rental packages for student tenants.
Some universities have turned to more intrusive means: installing systems that notify administrators when copyrighted files are transmitted over school networks. But questions about their effectiveness and privacy concerns have prompted many schools to reject these methods.
Greg Jackson, vice president and chief information officer at the University of Chicago, said that many of those technologies do little to solve the problem and that universities should instead focus on education.
"We have lots and lots of really smart kids who think 'OK, how do I get around it?' " he said, referring to the monitoring technology. "If you want to change behavior, you have to persuade people it's wrong."
Javier Hernandez can be reached at jhernandez@globe.com. 