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With new advances in technology occurring rapidly, university officials are constantly grappling with effective ways to patrol violations of copyright law at college campuses across the nation, including UCLA.

A five-page report detailing the efforts universities have made during the past year to curb Internet piracy of music and movies on college campuses was shared with the public at an Aug. 24 news conference call. The conference call was held by the co-chairmen of The Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities after it had been submitted to Congress.

“The report is designed to provide a snapshot of what universities around the country are doing,” said Jonathan Lamy of the Recording Industry Association of America.

Officials at college campuses are tackling the issue using four major approaches outlined in the report: “Legitimate Online Services,” “Educational Initiatives,” “Enforcement” and “Technological Measures.”

Twenty universities across the nation have signed deals with companies such as Napster 2.0, Ruckus and Realnetworks Inc. to provide students with discounted legal downloading, pay-per-download services and free music streaming. The report announced that later this fall, Napster and Microsoft will launch a service which allows students to download music to MP3 players with a subscription fee.

According to the report, “publicity of enforcement” – which ranges from warnings to fines and in some cases expulsion – has been an important and successful component in reducing illegal activity.

Some universities, including UCLA and UC Berkeley, have limited students’ bandwidth, which limits the amount of data that can be passed along a communications channel in a given period of time, in an effort to control the problem on their own campuses. Other schools use technology to filter or block file-sharing over their networks.

Many campuses, including UCLA, have instituted anti-piracy lectures into students’ orientation sessions and are constantly reminding university students and staff about the issue through letters and e-mails from the highest university representatives.

UCLA regularly alerts the campus community to the personal risks involved with illegal file-sharing.

“As a creator of intellectual property, UCLA respects copyright protections and does not condone the illegal or inappropriate use of copyrighted materials, whether through online materials or otherwise,” said Jim Davis, Associate Vice Chancellor of Information Technology in an April report.

“At the same time, UCLA respects due process and the student disciplinary process, and is striving to balance this respect with UCLA’s intention to comply and promote compliance with copyright laws.” Davis said.

In addition to orientation sessions and bandwidth management, UCLA has an integrated approach to addressing copyright infringement, including educational activities for students and parents, letters to all residents and signed Internet use agreements for all residents.

A “quarantine” approach is currently being practiced in the university residence halls, which will affect approximately 11,500 students and faculty in the upcoming year. Under this system, when a user makes available copyrighted material to others without permission, their Internet access is “quarantined” and access is limited to education-related work only until forms are filled out and appropriate disciplinary action is made.

According to “UCLA Quarantine Process”, a report by Davis, both assistant deans of students believe this process – which was implemented during the third week of spring quarter – is doing well. There was a substantial drop in notifications at the point when “quarantine” went into operation.

Spring quarter saw the least amount of claims – only 52 – while the fall and winter quarters had 67 and 89 claims, respectively. Of the 52 claims made during spring, 22 came in before the “quarantine” and the remaining 30 came in after it was implemented.

There also have been no incidents of first and second claims after the quarantine went into effect – meaning that if a student illegally downloaded a copyrighted soundtrack and had that computer “quarantined,” the student would receive a warning and have to sign forms to release his computer from quarantine status. UCLA officials never had cause to “quarantine” a second time.

The committee, made up of university leaders, higher education organizers and music and motion picture executives, formed in fall 2002 to develop solutions in combating illegal file-sharing on college campuses. The committee is trying to battle the distribution of copyrighted works on campuses, mostly through peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

“It is a knowledge base that universities can turn to and can ultimately conform it to their own university practices,” Lamy said of the report.

More than 3,000 users have been sued by the recording industry for illegal file-sharing over the past year. Among these were 158 students from 35 universities across the nation.

The epidemic of illegal file-sharing has caused Congress to get involved in the battle.

“Congress has recognized the huge impact that this is having on the recording industry,” said Bill Mahon of Penn State University. “As technology evolves, there is a greater potential for the theft of movies and damage to the movie industry.”

Hearings by the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, who requested a copy of the report to stay updated on the committee’s progress, are scheduled for next month.

“Efforts on what will be done over the next year are still under discussion,” Lamy said.

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