Kanye West is hot on campus. In fact, his single "Gold Digger" topped a recent list of most downloaded songs on Brown's Napster service, which the University began to offer students this fall in an attempt to curb illegal downloading.
But the Napster program itself has not been nearly as popular with Brown students. Daily summaries that the music vendor sends to the University show that only 1,866 students currently subscribe to Napster.
Not all students are able to subscribe because the service is not compatible with Macintosh computers. Even with non-Mac users, Napster has not been met with the unbridled success for which the University had hoped when a committee decided last spring to offer students a one-year trial of the program.
"For such a large group of people, it's really hard to find something that works," said Sarah Saxton-Frump '07, president of the Undergraduate Council of Students and member of the selection committee. The committee also considered other music vendors, such as Rhapsody, Cdigix, Ruckus and iTunes, according to Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene.
"I can see the value of using it (next year), but also how the money might be used in a better way," Saxton-Frump said.
Greene said Napster would have cost the University $30,000 this year had it not received a grant from "a group remaining anonymous that had an interest in keeping file-sharing legal."
Saxton-Frump and former UCS President Brian Bidadi '06 told The Herald in September that Campus Action Network, a Sony BMG Music Entertainment-led industry group, was funding the service.
Greene told The Herald that the University would evaluate the program's success this spring, paying special attention to any decrease in illegal file-sharing on campus.
Computing and Information Services can determine a decrease in illegal activity by noting changes in the amount of traffic that passes through the network. But activity appears much the same as before, according to Director of Information Technology Security Connie Sadler.
"It looks like we have the same traffic and the same number of complaints - the activity tracks very close to what we saw last year during this same period of time," Sadler wrote The Herald in an e-mail.
Copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Pictures Association of America and Universal Studios send the University complaints on a weekly basis, she wrote.
The University would like to see a decrease in illegal file-sharing for practical reasons as well, according to Greene.
"We don't want (the network) slowed down by music and videos when people have to use it for legitimate uses," he said. "It interferes with the educational process."
Students who illegally share files also violate CIS policies, which require network users to "observe the copyright law as it applies to music, videos, games, images, texts and other media."
Last summer, The Herald reported that the University had received a subpoena from the RIAA requesting information about six students who had illegally shared files.
"If they have an (Internet Protocol) address, they can ask the University to turn over a name and other info," Greene said.
Once the University turns over the information to the RIAA, the suits become a private matter. "That's why we wouldn't know what's necessarily going on with an individual student and the RIAA," Greene said. The University did not release the names of the students and disciplinary measures taken against them.
Administrators have different attitudes toward last year's RIAA suits. Sadler said the suits were not symbolic but was unable to say whether the RIAA would take legal action in the future. "There is no indication one way or the other," she said.
Vice President of CIS Ellen Waite-Franzen said she believed the RIAA was not simply targeting college students. "From the stats we have about illegal downloading, we know there's a lot of other non-college students RIAA is targeting," she said.
"In the latest round (of suits) I know there were no college students with suits filed against them," she added.
Associate Dean of Judicial Affairs Terry Addison thought the RIAA wanted to "make a big splash. ... make all this noise up front to make students rethink downloading."
In the wake of the suits filed against students, Addison said institutions approached student file-sharing more aggressively.
"Colleges and universities really took the stance of making sure students are being held accountable," Addison said. "But we don't want to legislate against the good will of our students," he added.
Students caught infringing copyright law receive a letter notifying them that a second transgression will result in a judicial hearing. In extreme cases, CIS "can shut down computers and (students in violation) can be banned from using the network," Greene said. Students can be "separated from the University, although that would be an extreme case," he added.
Addison agreed that suspension would be extremely unlikely. "It would be because the student was a repeat offender, not just because he was downloading in and of itself," he said.
The Herald reported in October that CIS has sent notices to between 700 and 800 students in the past two years asking them to stop using the network for illegal purposes. Only 10 of those cases resulted in dean's hearings.
The CIS Acceptable Use Policy asks students not to misuse other resources either. For example, students are expected to understand restrictions imposed by online academic databases. Earlier this semester, a graduate student's violation of the library's contract with Ebrary - a company that makes electronic books available to libraries - caused the campus-wide suspension of the service. "We had to jump through a number of hoops before we could get access again," said Waite-Franzen, who co-wrote an e-mail warning that was sent to the Brown community.
Resource restrictions usually appear on a page most users simply click through. "We also are talking to publishers and telling them to make it more visible, so that people do not unconsciously violate the website," said University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi, who co-wrote the e-mail.
Rather than pursuing a lawsuit against the individual or the institution in violation, companies are more interested in preventing such an incident from happening again, Hemmasi said.
Waite-Franzen stressed the importance of students understanding the restrictions set by the resources they use.
"Because of the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act, we need to make sure that students use programs properly, and if they don't the university becomes liable," she said.
The DMCA, which Congress passed in 1998, limits the liability of higher education institutions that provide online services in the case of copyright infringement by graduate students and faculty members. The act's expedited subpoena provision requires universities to turn over the identities of network users who violate copyright laws.
"DMCA is a measure that gives more teeth to what the RIAA was trying to do," Addison said. "It holds individuals more than institutions responsible, but is aimed at getting institutions to have strategies in place to work toward reduction of illegal file-sharing."
Student violations of intellectual property agreements could lead to legal action, whether for academic or personal use. But the University remains reluctant to step up action against its own students.
