2008 Woodie Awards
Download Debacle: 16 Students Cited For Illegal Internet Use
David Simon
Issue date: 11/12/04 Section: News
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Downloaded a couple of songs off KaZaa a year ago and just forgot about them? Well, the illegal files can just come back and haunt you. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) warned 16 Colgate students of their recent crackdown starting last week and started a lawsuit against one of them.
"It was completely ridiculous. I stopped using KaZaa a year ago, but I left 20 or so Top 40 songs in my folder, so they were still shared on the network," Katie Stark said. "I had to talk to Dean Noel Bisson, and got a disciplinary warning. I also removed KaZaa and all of the shared files from my computer."
Software and music piracy has always been an integral part of life on the web - especially on college campuses where students can take advantage of the top-notch network facilities. According to the latest statistics, one filesharing program called BitTorrent accounts for more than one-third of the internet traffic of the entire globe, and the unofficial estimates of SOURCe show similar figures.
However, the recording industry got tired of their steadily declining incomes and decided to take demonstrative action against those who decide not to pay for their favorite songs. Since the beginning of October, the RIAA filed more than 15 hundred lawsuits against college students and sent out thousands of warnings. Several colleges in the area also came under fire, such as SUNY Morrisville and Hamilton College.
"There has been letters from the recording industry coming in from every week. This looks scary." one SOURCe worker commented.
Copyright problems are more common than anybody would think. Director of SOURCe Judy Doherty explained that every once in a while, a copyright owner would notify Colgate that somebody uploaded protected material to the Colgate network. One of the recent catches, for example, was the complete novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on one of the students' personal webpages. In these cases, material is removed from the servers within days.
"It was completely ridiculous. I stopped using KaZaa a year ago, but I left 20 or so Top 40 songs in my folder, so they were still shared on the network," Katie Stark said. "I had to talk to Dean Noel Bisson, and got a disciplinary warning. I also removed KaZaa and all of the shared files from my computer."
Software and music piracy has always been an integral part of life on the web - especially on college campuses where students can take advantage of the top-notch network facilities. According to the latest statistics, one filesharing program called BitTorrent accounts for more than one-third of the internet traffic of the entire globe, and the unofficial estimates of SOURCe show similar figures.
However, the recording industry got tired of their steadily declining incomes and decided to take demonstrative action against those who decide not to pay for their favorite songs. Since the beginning of October, the RIAA filed more than 15 hundred lawsuits against college students and sent out thousands of warnings. Several colleges in the area also came under fire, such as SUNY Morrisville and Hamilton College.
"There has been letters from the recording industry coming in from every week. This looks scary." one SOURCe worker commented.
Copyright problems are more common than anybody would think. Director of SOURCe Judy Doherty explained that every once in a while, a copyright owner would notify Colgate that somebody uploaded protected material to the Colgate network. One of the recent catches, for example, was the complete novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on one of the students' personal webpages. In these cases, material is removed from the servers within days.