UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS PUT ON NOTICE ON FILE SHARING
Key member of Congress will host debate today (Fri.) on file sharing on college campuses, event that comes as academic groups have raised concerns about online piracy and key music group charges in a new study that file sharing is harming CD sales. House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee Chmn. Smith (R-Tex.), who is leading candidate to succeed Rep. Coble (R-N.C.) as chmn. of Courts, Internet & Intellectual Property Subcommittee next year, has organized debate at U. of Tex.-Austin on file sharing, but his spokesman said Smith would have to participate remotely because of press of House business. Smith has asked each of his panelists, who range from peer-to-peer software executive to record industry lobbyist, to suggest specific ways government can address what he called “a proliferation of unauthorized intellectual property on university campuses.”
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College file sharing has drawn ire of 6 higher education organizations that on Tues. wrote to college and university presidents urging them to give “serious attention” to campus file sharing. MPAA and RIAA have written letters to higher education presidents, and while those letters weren’t available at our deadline, higher education groups cited them in their letter and also noted that meetings had been held involving higher education groups and content producer groups. Higher education groups -- American Assn. of Community Colleges, American Assn. of State Colleges & Universities, American Council on Education, Assn. of American Universities, National Assn. of Independent Colleges & Universities and National Assn. of State Universities & Land- Grant Colleges -- said MPAA and RIAA shared concerns about unauthorized file sharing and provided documented evidence of abuses. Referring to correspondence to universities from MPAA and RIAA, 6 groups wrote: “Obviously, their letter addresses this topic from the perspective of the recording and movie industries and reflects their interpretation of these issues. Nonetheless, we are in total agreement that this issue is important and merits your attention for multiple reasons.”
“This is an exceptionally complex topic,” 6 groups said, and involves “such basic campus values as personal privacy, free speech and academic freedom.” But groups urged university presidents to work with officials on campus to examine efforts that could be made to protect copyrighted materials, including “a reassessment of your institutional computer usage policies and bandwidth management practices.”
Many colleges already have taken such steps, beginning when Napster craze erupted. For example, Pomona College in Claremont, Cal., performs what’s known as bandwidth shaping. Campus servers note what port Internet traffic arrives on, and traffic that appears to be file sharing such as MP3 files is allocated only 5% of college’s bandwidth. Pomona plans eventually to have residence halls on network separate from rest of campus, to protect academic use of Internet from interference from student file sharing.
New data from Nielsen/NetRatings suggest interest in online music continues to grow, with visits to KaZaA’s Web site soaring 324% over last year, with each month increase over previous one. Nielsen/NetRatings, in study released Thurs., also cited increase in traffic to Sony/Universal joint venture pressplay, with its more than 600,000 Web site visitors in Aug. exceeding traffic for first quarter of 2002. Analyst Carolyn Clark said that might have been aided by fact that pressplay had abandoned its initial policy of restricting number of downloads and streams, perhaps making $14.95 per month service more attractive. Pressplay saw 18% of its Web site visitors click through to secure payment portion of site, with nearly 10% subscribing for at least trial run. “The true test of whether this conversion percent is significant,” Clark said, “depends largely on pressplay’s ability to sustain its registered user base beyond the free trial and the first month.”
It’s unclear whether revenue from pressplay and other label- owned site, MusicNet (owned by Bertelsmann, AOL Time Warner, EMI Group and RealNetworks), will offset what recording industry says is declining CD sales related to file sharing. Study released Thurs. by International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said world sales of recorded music fell 9.2% in value and 11.2% in units in first half of 2002, and attributed drop to both weak economy and “the widespread availability of free music.” “The figures are disappointing but not unexpected,” IFPI Chmn. Jay Berman said: “The industry is in transition, with widespread CD-R copying and Internet downloading continuing to affect sales.” However, he said “the recording industry is taking positive steps to provide legitimate, consumer-friendly online services.”
Major audience for recorded music is college students, which puts Smith’s Fri. panel at center of file-sharing debate. Appearing on panel will be StreamCast Networks (KaZaA parent) CEO Steve Griffin, Business Software Alliance Pres. Robert Holleyman, Interactive Digital Software Assn. Pres. Douglas Lowenstein, Audiogalaxy.com Pres. Michael Merhej, RIAA Pres. Cary Sherman, Public Knowledge’s Mike Godwin (substituting for Gigi Sohn), Assn. for Competitive Technology Pres. Jonathan Zuck and U. of Tex. Vp-Information Technology Daniel Updergrove.