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BY SARAH PETERSON

In print | Published October 11, 2007

Last week, the first illegal file-sharing lawsuit to go to court was concluded. A federal jury in Duluth, Minnesota decided in favor of the six record companies who had filed the suit and ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay a total of $222,000 in damages for 24 music files that she was found guilty of sharing through the peer-to-peer file-sharing program Kazaa. This decision lends further strength and significance to the recording industry’s crackdown on illegal file-sharing the impact of which has even been felt here at Swarthmore.

According to Ben Mazer ‘10, a member of Free Culture, an on-campus movement promoting the freedom to distribute creative works via media such as the Internet, this issue largely reflects a generation gap in which the older are not as sympathetic towards the younger generation and have different ideas of what is damaging to the artist or how fans should support artists. This type of issue isn’t just about the large corporation vs. the individual but is really a generational issue. The average adult thinks file sharing is not only illegal but morally [wrong], while most college students don’t feel that way. This requires us to be very vocal because we are not wrong, Mazer said. People of our generation, college students and younger, support artists in different ways than just buying CDs. We go to concerts, create MySpace forums and use technology to support them … in more personal ways.

Thousands of suits such as this one have been brought against individuals across the country, and college students including Swarthmore students comprise a large population of the individuals accused. According to an Inside Higher Ed article provided by the Recording Industry Association of America’s communications office, A recent survey by Student Monitor from spring 2006 found that more than half of college students download music and movies illegally, and according to the market research firm NPD, college students alone accounted for more than 1.3 billion illegal music downloads in 2006.

Because of these large figures, the recording industry has elected to focus in particular on college campuses to crack down on file-sharing. The RIAA describes its approach as collaborative, involving meeting personally with administrators and providing orientation videos and other educational materials. In the Inside Higher Ed article, they describe the suits against individual file-traffickers as a last resort.

In a recent press release, the RIAA, which acts on behalf of many major record companies, announced that in the course of a week it had sent 403 pre-litigation letters portending possible lawsuits to 22 universities around the country. According to the press release, The letters reflect evidence suggesting abuse of campus computer networks for the purpose of copyright infringement.

Information Technology Services Director Judy Downing oversees much of the paperwork that the recording industry and entertainment studios send to the college regarding copyright infringement. When a student is found to have violated copyright, the record companies’ representatives send a letter to the college or university. At this point in the process, the RIAA has no information identifying the student, except for the IP address. ITS, however, can identify the student and forwards the pre-settlement letter onto the student. Last semester, two Swarthmore students received such letters. Downing said that there haven’t been any letters since then.

The next stage in the process is what Downing identifies as an early settlement letter, which provides the student with the opportunity to settle rather than go to court. The RIAA has established a website, www.p2plawsuits.com, where individuals accused of infringement can settle the claims. So far, only one of the two Swarthmore students contacted has received an early settlement letter. This student, who graduated in June, received the letter from Downing, not directly from the record companies. As of this date, the college has never given a student’s name to anyone, Downing said. Downing did not know whether or not that student decided to settle with the record companies or go to court.

While Downing has heard that some institutionssuch as Gettsysburg College and Franklin & Marshall Collegeare at least considering altogether blocking the use of the peer-to-peer programs through which st illegal file-sharing takes place, she and ITS are opposed to such measures. There could be some very legitimate reasons for p2p, Downing said, citing situations in which systems administrators might need to share software and wouldn’t be violating copyrights. Moreover, the burden of controlling network usage does not rest on the administration. We expect the community to be really smart, and able to police themselves, Downing said. We don’t police.

While Downing does not keep track of how many network users use file-sharing programs, she does keep track of how many notifications of copyright violations the college receives, some of which also apply to downloaded television shows. These are different from pre-litigation notices since they only ask that Downing make sure that the offending individual remove the file from their hard drive, thereby preventing its further dissemination. The notification of students getting caught illegal file-sharing has become a significant task for Downing.

We look at the internet as a communication tool and an educational tool and that’s why we put a lot of money into it. And yet, students use it as an entertainment tool ¦ Here’s the head of ITS going around telling students to take things down. That’s a waste of real high talent, Associate Dean for Student Life Myrt Westphal said. Westphal and Downing have spoken about the possibility of instituting a fine for copyright violations brought to ITS’s attention by outside companies. Other institutions charge every time you get a take-down notice, and we’re pretty gentle about it, Westphal said.

At this point, the policy is that network users must take down the file before a certain date or they will have their network access revoked. However, this can be and usually is restored to the user. I think the dean’s office needs to fine on their second or third offense, Downing said. Many of the students have received multiple notices.

I’m perfectly happy with charging, said Westphal. This is a task that requires somebody else to do something that’s really not productive for the college. It wouldn’t bother me to have a large fine. I don’t think we can legislate against a tidal wave. But when it impinges on us or takes up somebody’s time or causes us to have more bandwidth then people who misuse it should pay.

Fines may help to discourage students from illegal file-sharing, since already knowing about the ethical and legal downsides to file-sharing has not proven a sufficient deterrent. There’s stuff on the ITS Web site, and there’s stuff out there in the world it’s hard to believe today that we would have students who do not know that it’s illegal, Downing said. The question is, how much of a gamble are you willing to take that you won’t get caught ¦ If there’s a positive at all about this poor lady [Thomas] being sued, it’s probably that See? We’ve been telling the truth. It can happen.’

The number of copyright violations that Swarthmore has received this year is down, however the lowest it’s been in a number of years, Downing said. Moreover, while over the past year the three returning classes have each incurred around 30 violations, the class of 2011 has not brought in any violation notifications despite already being a quarter of the way through the year. File-sharing and its risks were a major topic of discussion before the beginning of the school year both in RA training and in the first-years’ computer use session during Orientation Week. Incoming students were apprised of what had happened to the two students last year contacted by the RIAA, and what the consequences of those notifications could amount to.

A handful of kids were asking questions, everyone seemed to be a little bit uncomfortable with the situation and no one really knew if what they were doing was okay or not, said Valerie Clark ‘11, who attended the computing session. Students asked questions about what methods of communication were acceptable [File-sharing] was definitely a big part of the culture before we got here, and a lot of people I know stopped as a result of that talk.Instead, Clark’s hallmates and friends take advantage of other resources, such as being able to stream each others’ iTunes libraries through the college network and listening to albums in each other’s rooms. It’s drawn out that social aspect of listening to music again, Clark said.

Additional reporting by Maria Khim.

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