Several days after a group representing the music industry
cracked down on users illegally sharing music by filing hundreds of
lawsuits and targeting nine University students, students are
expressing concern about the legality of downloading media
files.

The Recording Industry Association of America,
file-sharing’s most aggressive opponent, cannot view a
user’s copyrighted material unless that person is sharing, or
uploading, files.

For this reason, LSA senior Jeff Hurvitz does not allow the
uploading of files from his computer anymore.

“I turned it off after I started hearing about the
lawsuits,” said Hurvitz, adding that he downloads music to
save money on CDs he does not want to buy.

LSA freshman Nisha Patel echoed this sentiment. “It was
really brought home when the … kids here got caught, and one
of the people was a girl from our dorm,” she said.

But unlike Hurvitz and Patel, many students on campus are
unaware that they are permitting files to be uploaded from their
computers.

Jack Bernard, assistant general counsel to the University and
intellectual property specialist, explained file-sharing on campus
by comparing students’ understanding of music-downloading
software to their understanding of cars they drive.

“Many students drive, and they know how to drive very
well, but they don’t know how the internal combustion engine
works,” Bernard said.

Recent announcements by the recording industry have underscored
its commitment to challenging the online sharing of copyrighted
materials.

Last Wednesday night, users of University Housing Internet
services received an e-mail announcing that the University had
received nine notices of intent to subpoena the identity of
Internet users suspected of sharing copyrighted materials. The
notices were filed by the RIAA. At least seven of these students
were living in the residence halls, according to the e-mail.

The same day, the RIAA announced that it filed 532 anonymous
lawsuits against computer users in Washington and New York also
suspected of illegally sharing files. The nine notices received by
the University are not included in these suits.

By filing these lawsuits against “John Doe”
defendants — users designated only by their Internet protocol
addresses — RIAA circumvented a decision recently made by an
appellate court limiting the use of subpoenas to obtain names and
contact information from Internet Service Providers like the
University.

Since RIAA intended to subpoena the University students in
December before that court decision, any legal action taken by RIAA
is subject to increased legal scrutiny, Bernard said.

The University has not released the information about the nine
students and does not intend to do so until RIAA has overcome the
necessary legal barriers, University spokeswoman Julie Peterson
said.

RIAA has yet to file a lawsuit against anyone using University
Housing Internet services. Currently, RIAA does not plan to sue
individuals whose information it has already obtained, though it is
not precluded from doing so in the future, an RIAA spokesperson
said.

“Pending further resolution by the courts on the propriety
of the (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) subpoena process, we will
not make any use of the names that were previously disclosed to us
pursuant to DMCA subpoenas,” an RIAA spokesperson said in a
written statement. The spokesperson added that the group would
pursue any litigation that has been filed.

Sharing files online can be legal, as long as the material being
shared is not protected under copyright law, Bernard said. But he
added that most files are copyrighted, including music, television
shows and movies. But “there are many legitimate ways to
access materials that are not in violation of copyright,”
Bernard said.

He said that RIAA uses a simple software — called a
webcrawler — to search IP addresses for large storehouses of
copyrighted material, typically mp3’s, the most common format
for digital music. RIAA can easily access shared files at an IP
address if the user is uploading.

Although most file-sharing programs like Kazaa and Limewire
allow users to disable uploading, some students do not know how to
activate this option. Because a number of file-sharing programs
come with the uploading option enabled, or automatically reset this
option when the user upgrades, students must be constantly aware of
their online activity, Bernard said.

“It’s easy to figure out if you know that uploading
could cause problems, but most people don’t know that
it’s automatically on,” Patel said.