Two universities are making it harder for students to download copyrighted music.
Central Washington University and another university, which requested to remain nameless, have installed a filter that prevents users on the university’s network filter from downloading copyrighted songs.
The universities are the first to thwart attempts at downloading music directly. Other schools, such as the University of Wisconsin, employ a system that does not exclude downloading on the network but instead regulates such downloads to a slower network speed.
Central Washington University and the other university are in an experimental stage with the network filter, developed by Audible Magic Co., according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Audible Magic’s product has been nicknamed a “file swap killer.” It is slated as a way to “comprehensively control peer-to-peer file sharing,” according to news articles and product descriptions on Audible Magic Company’s website.
The technology allows users to block all peer-to peer-file transfer involving copyrighted material. All downloads on the universities’ networks are matched against the filter’s database of four million copyrighted songs. If a user attempts to download one of the songs in the database, the filter prevents the download.
Central Washington University officials have previously said the decision to use Audible Magic’s product resulted from frustration with a slow network speed coming from a large numbers of songs being downloaded. Central officials also spent a large amount of time responding to cease-and-desist requests from the Recording Industry Association of America.
UW senior administrative program specialist Brian Rust said UW has no plans to use a network filter comparable to Audible Magic’s.
Rust said, however, that UW housing has employed a “package shaper” since the beginning of the 2004-05 academic year.
“Our package shaper profiles the file sharing type and relegates it to a slower network speed. There isn’t as much bandwidth access for file sharing as for other types of Internet usage,” Rust said. “It was instituted at [UW] housing’s request and seems to have taken care of most of the slow Internet problems in UW housing.”
UW students expressed varying opinions on university property control issues.
“On campus is university property,” UW senior Laura Kelash said. “If network bandwidth is occupied mainly by students downloading, the university also has to protect its property.”
Some students, however, believe the property belongs to the people essentially paying for it.
“It’s university property, but who pays tuition and UW housing fees, which all go into developing and maintaining the network?” said a UW junior who wished to remain anonymous. “Do all these people making the rules pay to have someone tell them how to use what they’ve paid for?”
As a response to results from a recent Harvard University study showing file down loaders actually buy more music than those who do not illegally download, UW sophomore Abby Vanderscheuren said she can understand both sides of the issue.
“As a musician, I can see where groups are concerned if they’re not receiving royalties,” she said. “But I don’t think that most of the time people download a whole album. Usually it’s just one song they don’t want to spend $15 on a CD for.”