Despite legal threats from the recording industry, SU students continue to burn CDs and download music. And university officials are looking into ways to keep students from getting burned.

Sixty-three percent of Syracuse University students illegally download songs, movies and software from the Internet, according to a study conducted in the fall of 2003 by Computing and Media Services and the School of Information Studies.

But next fall, officials will research the idea of subscribing to downloading services such as Napster and Apple iTunes to prevent potential legal suits against SU students, because students seem apathetic toward possible punishments and a questionably suffering music industry.

So far, only a handful of students have experienced negative repercussions as a result of illegal downloading.

The Recording Industry Association of America has sent SU about 25 letters each month asking that a certain student’s Internet port be disconnected because it facilitated illegal file-sharing.

But asking for the names of the students who use file-sharing ports is also an option for the association, which could result in issuing subpoenas and fines, or even jail time. The average punishment is about $3,000.

It’s only a matter of time until the RIAA targets an SU student with more severe charges, said Deborah Nosky, manager of IT communications and professional development.

‘I think students are gambling that it won’t be their name when the time comes,’ Nosky said. ‘They certainly will ask us for the names – there’s nothing magical about us to prevent it.’

After receiving a letter, CMS engineers turn off the student’s Internet access until he or she visits the CMS office. At the office, each offender receives a brief speech on the legality of file-sharing and signs a statement to the RIAA stating that they will not illegally download again.

Exceptions to the general punishment protocol do exist, though.

‘Punishments can vary based on how serious the offense is,’ Nosky said. ‘You’ll be in a lot more trouble if we catch you sharing ‘Kill Bill Volume 2′ than if you were downloading a Fleetwood Mac song from 1978.’

A second-time offender’s sanctions can include probationary status, temporary denial of access to the university network and assignment of an educational project, said Juanita Perez Williams, director of the office of Judicial Affairs.

The university’s method of punishment, though, doesn’t act as an effective deterrent to students, said Williams.

First-time offenses are not treated seriously enough, and the odds of being caught more than once are small, so steeper penalties may not be effective in scaring or stopping students, Nosky said.

The university itself doesn’t actively look for students who are file-sharing, but Nosky said the university should crack down on file-sharers to protect them from future RIAA punishments.

On March 23, the RIAA issued 532 subpoenas to people who were allegedly file-sharing. Eighty-nine ports were associated with 20 different university networks – but none to SU students.

Nine of the 532 suits filed in March were against New York University students. NYU officials initially refused to release the students’ names, but after a three-week investigation, NYU officials will most likely comply, according to an article in NYU’s The Washington Square News.

SU officials, however, wouldn’t refuse to cooperate with a legal request from the RIAA if one were lodged against an SU student, Nosky said.

‘When the university is confronted with legal documents, we will follow rules of the court,’ Nosky said. ‘If we get that subpoena, we will comply.’

Aware of the risks that file-sharing students face, universities – including SU – are looking into accepted alternatives to minimize the possibility of litigation.

Pennsylvania State University was the first institution to subscribe to an online file-sharing service, allowing its students to temporarily stream songs for free or to pay 99 cents a song for a permanent copy.

PSU’s subscription to Napster, which began Jan. 12, facilitates about 100,000 downloads to about 18,000 students that live on campus, said Tysen Kendig, a spokesman for PSU.

Students initially criticized the program because it required that they pay a dollar for each song burned onto a CD. But eventually many students opted to keep the music files on their computers, Kendig said.

‘The biggest thing was getting past students’ mind-set that everything they get on the Internet is free,’ Kendig said. ‘Students on campus have grown up with the Internet and have gotten used to stealing music and not thinking twice about it.’

PSU funded the program through an annual student technology fee, after rearranging its budget so that it would remain constant over the next few years.

Motivating students to respect copyright laws is becoming increasingly harder in light of advancing technology and a sense of invincibility that young people have, Kendig said. But the program not only protects students from the subpoenas but reinforces the idea that file-sharing is illegal.

‘It’s serving ethics education while providing a tangible music service,’ Kendig said.

But a study released March 29 found that file-sharing had little effect on the recording industry’s revenue, and studies like these take away the RIAA’s most powerful argument, he said.

In the study, OpenNap, a file-sharing network, analyzed which songs and movies were being downloaded most frequently over a period of four months then correlated the numbers with the sales statistics of 680 albums.

The study is the first to use technology-based research as opposed to survey-based research, said Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School, who led the study with Koleman Strumpf of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

But RIAA officials were quick to criticize the OpenNap study, saying that four months was too short a time to detect an economic trend.

‘It’s like noticing that the sky is clear and concluding this has been the sunniest decade in history,’ said an RIAA memo released April 2.

Many songs, however, aren’t popular for more than a few weeks, and four months is a long time in the music industry, Oberholzer-Gee said.

The SU study on file-sharing, however, found that students’ attitudes towards the recording industry haven’t changed over the years.

‘We asked about whether people think that CDs are a rip-off or if they think that artists are making too much money,’ said Jeffrey Stanton, assistant professor in the School of Information Studies who led the study. ‘We looked to see if people were cynical about the whole record company deal.’

The study also found that the varying opinions people had toward the industry did not affect the amount of money students budgeted for CDs and movies.

‘There’s a common claim by the record companies saying that people will always take something for free if they can and that, in some sense, we are a bunch of selfish jerks,’ he said. ‘Our data did not show that at all.’

The Harvard/UNC-Chapel Hill study was too limited in simply studying file-sharing networks, said David Rezak, an SU music industry professor, adding that peer-to-peer sharing is one of many factors in the trend. DVD sales, piracy and legitimate sales of downloads over the Internet also contribute to the trend.

‘The industry worldwide is experiencing a downturn,’ Rezak said. ‘It would be foolish to say that illegal file-sharing has no impact on the recording industry.’

Published on April 20, 2004 at 12:00 pm