Freshman. Dorm room. Computer screen. Kazaa search: Mound/Phish.

Download complete.

What happens when this single download turns into a recurring habit? What happens when this student gets slapped with a fine of more than $15,000 in damages owed to the recording industry?

This individual has now been thrown into the shoes of four college students sued by recording industries for downloading and sharing thousands of files illegally.

Summer developments, good and bad

Throughout last summer, the recording industry brought subpoenas, lawsuits and online music stores to the surface in an effort to curb online piracy.

However, another group of individuals began discussion of an alternate approach to online piracy directed primarily toward college students, whom many believe to be the primary offenders. Talk began of a possible system that would ultimately allow colleges and individual college students to pay a small fee in order to legally access music online.

Two meetings were held in the summer months to discuss the possibility of a pilot program to test this fall at several colleges and universities.

Graham B. Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University at University Park and co-chairman of the technology subcommittee of the Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry, said a higher-education board created last June has considered asking universities to foot the bill for electronic music.

“Representatives from higher education met with a broad range of executives from the music industry in New York to discuss the concept of universities paying a fee so that students would have extensive access to music electronically over the Web,” Spanier said.

Online service providers attended the most recent meeting as well and are currently developing a potential program. Spanier also said recording companies, publishers, songwriters and performers were represented at the table.

“Solutions would require the cooperation of all rights holders to make this possible,” Spanier said.

Individuals involved in the meeting’s discussion have said some higher-education officials are hesitant to set up such a system that would block peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa that in the eyes of some would then limit a student’s “academic freedom.” But universities may have to block these networks to please record companies and music publishers.

“It’s difficult to say that all of the use of file-sharing programs is illegal,” said Brian Rust, communications manager with the Division of Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin. He said students need to use similar types of programs in some music-appreciation classes to gain access to music that has been licensed for classroom use.

John Vaughn, executive vice president of the Association of American Universities, attended the most recent meeting. Although he said that the overall mood of the meeting was positive, skepticism does persist.

“Some music services aren’t sure they are going to be able to adapt their style of operation to fit a campus. Some question whether a university would participate … as well as the students,” Vaughn said. “This would cost something. And now students are getting music for free.”

Spanier agreed that the new committee was making progress.

“I was impressed with the interest expressed at the meeting. This is a very positive development, since such an approach could make legal what is now illegal,” Spanier said.

The cost of a university file-sharing system has not been estimated; however, it is described as minimal and could be deducted from paid student fees.

According to Vaughn, annual lump fees for students are a possibility, but every option is still under consideration.

Besides the method of pay, which is still debated, the new programs could have a model similar to Apple’s new iTunes music store or Buymusic.com’s setup. Both of these new services allow users to pay a small fee, typically less than $1, to download one song and allow users access to thousands of songs.

The iTunes music store alone offers 200,000 songs for download.

However, who’s to say these services are drawing college students away from the free approach — the ‘stealing’ approach — the common way?

Late last year, recording companies pinpointed four college students whom they believed to be operating illegal file-sharing programs through their campus networks and the companies filed a lawsuit against them. Although all four of the suits were settled outside of court, the students were each fined up to $17,500 in damages to the music industry.

The Recording Industry Association of America as a whole is taking a similar approach to the situation by gathering evidence against individual file-sharing students. This information could be used to file lawsuits against thousands.

The RIAA took another approach this summer by issuing subpoenas to several colleges. Bentley and Boston colleges, DePaul and Northeastern universities, Loyola University-Chicago and Massachusetts Institute of Technology were a few of the universities to receive subpoenas ordering them to reveal the names of certain students thought to be offering music via university networks in violation of copyright law.

However, earlier this month the president of the RIAA assured Congress that college students who have only downloaded a few songs would not be targeted in their line of lawsuits.

The RIAA lawsuits are used to stop large offenders dead in their tracks and use the targeted students as examples, part of a scare tactic to other small-time downloaders.

Industry officials are hoping that after a student sees a peer being hit with a lawsuit, perhaps they may think twice before opening Kazaa and downloading that next song.

“I don’t know how many constitutes an example before you have a sense that they are seriously going after everyone they possibly can,” Rust said. “I don’t know what their intent is, other than to just get people to stop.”

Copyright laws allow for fines of up to $750 to $150,000 per song.

UW’s ongoing struggle with file-sharing: Should students fear prosecution?

No subpoenas have been issued to the University of Wisconsin, but file sharing persists as a significant problem on the UW campus, according to Rust. This is also an issue that UW takes very seriously and is looking for ways to minimize.

“(University) Housing fairly regularly notifies students that they need to be aware of the appropriate use of the network and that downloading and sharing is illegal,” Rust said.

In addition to simply telling students not to share files, Rust said that UW has purchased a limited amount of bandwidth to shape the traffic and only a certain amount of this bandwidth can be used for file sharing.

Even with some bandwidth still available for this type of use, in the wake of soaring computer viruses, students have been urged to turn peer-to-peer file sharing off on their personal computers as one way to reduce the risk of contracting the virus.

In an e-mail sent to all UW students from the UW Security Team, the problem of illegal file sharing was addressed with this message: “Sharing music and movie files without permission from the copyright holder is illegal. The recording industry and motion picture industry are actively scanning for illegal copies of their work. If they find some that you are hosting, you may receive a warning, or worse. Some students at other institutions have received subpoenas. Don’t let the first one at Wisconsin be you.”

UW is continuing to look for ways to discourage file sharing. Rust said that university officials have yet to look into a program similar to the ones discussed at the meeting because it is still a brand-new service.

Vaughn said his committee will send invitations to several universities for help in developing some kind of pilot program for legal university-funded file sharing.