As the Recording Industry Association of America continues to slap lawsuits on illegal file-sharers, some universities across the country are exploring other options to let students get their ‘Milkshake’ without breaking the law.

‘No matter what the university says, people are going to file-share,’ said Eugene Quinn, Jr., a professor in the Syracuse University College of Law and creator of IPwatchdog.com, a free Internet resource for intellectual property law. ‘It’s gone on for so long that people believe they have the right to do it. So what can we do knowing that?’

At Pennsylvania State University, officials signed a contract with Napster last November, allowing students to download their fill of anything from Outkast to Enya, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian newspaper.

The Residence Hall Association of the University of Maryland formed a task force committee with several other university officials this week to explore whether the school should enter into a similar contract, according to The New York Times. The University of Rochester signed a deal yesterday, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The contract, the first of its kind, ensures that students will download music legally, since Napster charges for its services and gives a portion of its profits to the recording industry.

‘It helps the music industry because we’re essentially paying for it instead of taking it for free from someone else,’ said Molly Browne, a sophomore at Penn State at Altoona.

But while the SU branch of the RHA has not discussed the future of file-sharing among residents, the topic could arise soon.

‘Our executive board and our organization would be very enthusiastic to explore options to make it absolutely legal for all students to file-share,’ said Tony Bartocci, president of the RHA at SU. ‘This is a hot issue that people would not mind taking time to explore because it has mass appeal to students.’

And with a service regulated by the university, the online system would not slow down because of major traffic using too much bandwidth.

‘If we were to download a lot, we’d take up a lot of the bandwidth and get violations from the university,’ Browne said. ‘But now people are not involved with bandwidth problems.’

The students also do not struggle with the constant pop-up advertisements of other popular file-sharing programs like Kazaa, Browne said.

And the benefits of an endorsed service extends beyond avoiding lawsuits, system slowdowns and pop-ups.

‘If the file-sharing’s illegal, we turn our heads the other way,’ Quinn said. ‘But by allowing it, what they can do is police it.’

An unbridled file-sharing within a campus online network creates many problems for the university’s computer resources as each downloaded process or file requires much bandwidth and memory, Quinn said.

If students could download through a legal file-sharing service, controlled by the university, then many of these resource problems would disappear.

Virus-infected files could also be reduced if SU controlled file-sharing traffic.

‘It’s much like VD,’ Quinn said. ‘You don’t know you have it, but you’re passing it on. If you wanted to make sure this isn’t happening, you need to have a relative conduit of file-sharing, like Napster.’

The university would save all of the money it spends to repair the damages caused by viruses, Quinn added. Students would also save the money they spend for their own computer repair costs.

But because the size of their bank accounts, not copyright infringement, remains a priority for many students, Penn State’s students use this service for free. Their general information and technology fee covers the costs, Browne said.

‘We can pretty much download any song for free, and it helps us stay out of trouble too,’ Browne said.

If students wish to burn a CD, then they must pay 99 cents for each track, Browne said.

The cost of that technology fee must be high for Napster and the RIAA to continue to make a profit, Quinn said.

‘I don’t know how Penn State’s gonna pull it off,’ Quinn said. ‘But if it keeps students from infringing, then it’s a great idea.’

But whether SU students should pay an additional fee for a controlled file-sharing service remains a question.

‘We’d only want a discounted rate, or make it an added free benefit, reaping the fruits of being an SU student,’ Bartocci said.

The best contract for SU would ensure that the service is very inexpensive, but not free, Quinn said.

‘It couldn’t be free, because these companies need to make money, too,’ Quinn said. ‘If you charge a reduced fee, or a flat fee, then people will pay it if it’s low enough.’

Regardless of whether a university enters into a contract with a file-sharing service, students will continue to download.

‘But I feel that this is something everyone would want,’ Bartocci said. ‘Everyone wants music of some kind, and this idea really makes sense.’

Published on February 5, 2004 at 12:00 pm