Web Seminars Contributed by EDUCAUSE, Piracy, and P2P File Sharing

The recording industry’s complaints against alleged music downloaders are just the tip of the iceberg in legal threats against online activity. In the five years of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, we have seen thousands of legal threats, with claims including trademark infringement, defamation, and copyright infringement. This seminar will discuss some of the range of complaints, both unwarranted and justified, and describe ChillingEffects.org’s resources for those trying to evaluate legal threats. In some cases, the web’s sunlight can help to melt meritless threats.

A steady stream of press releases from the MPAA and the RIAA about unauthorized peer-to-peer downloading suggests that college students are digital pirates and campus network officials are engaged in benign neglect. Yet ample evidence confirms that unauthorized P2P downloading is primarily a consumer market problem, not especially tied to college students on campus networks. Moreover, the media companies with strong ties to consumer broadband providers are themselves at least indirectly promoting unauthorized P2P activity. This is not new: Media companies have a long history of seeking remedy (and revenue) from Congressional action, rather than pursuing marketplace solutions.

This presentation will focus on how Big Music and Big Hollywood have targeted colleges and universities via press releases and Congressional lobbying initiatives while largely ignoring the much larger amount of unauthorized P2P file sharing taking place on commercial networks.

Illinois State University has embarked on a comparative study of what works and what doesn't regarding peer-to-peer file sharing, media, and copyright on campus. After receiving almost 500 Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaints in the 2004–2005 academic year, the campus decided to explore the P2P issue in-depth and put in place a multifaceted plan to address it, working from the basis that the issues are education, ethics, and legal access rather than technology. The project has been strengthened by direct interaction with associations such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, along with vendors. This seminar will share the project's history, explore its six tenets, and provide some early data results.

In response to increasing rates of media piracy, particularly among college-aged students, the content industry has tried a variety of methods to dissuade questionable file-sharing practices, including airing commercials, filing lawsuits, and urging schools to provide access to sanctioned legal services, but progress to date has been minimal. Students themselves have not been consulted about their actual attitudes and behavior in this arena, although diverse motives have been ascribed to them. To gain a richer understanding of this key demographic, 42 undergraduates from a major East Coast university were interviewed at length about their media-acquisition habits and their responses to industry antipiracy efforts. This presentation will cover the students' viewpoints on this controversial topic.