The Recording Industry Association of America yesterday released a list of the top 25 U.S. colleges with growing numbers of students illegally downloading music — including Boston University, ranked 15th — and warned those students they will face legal action if they continue to download illegally.
Though the list was not released as part of an RIAA campaign, and was furnished only upon a request from the Associated Press, RIAA Communications Director Jenni Engebretsen said the association wants to send the message that college students should stop sharing files illegally.
In the 2006-07 academic year, the RIAA has already issued 14,646 warnings to students at the top 25 schools, after issuing 4,916 to those schools in 2005-06. Ohio University tops the list, followed by Purdue University. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is ranked 6th on the list, with 897 notices issued to date this year.
In a statement accompanying the list, the RIAA cited improved technology as one reason it has been able to track nearly three times as many infractions as last year. The RIAA has sued more than 30 BU students for illegal filesharing since fall 2005.
“The challenge [in preventing illegal downloads] is most acute on college campuses, where there is easy access to a high-speed Internet connection and students who have limited budgets but are some of the most avid music fans,” the RIAA statement reads, citing a survey that reported more than half of college students download music and movies illegally.
“Collectively, this has spawned a culture where the illegal downloading of music is thought to be okay and all too often risk-free,” it states.
The RIAA stressed the harm illegal downloading can do to colleges’ networks when large amounts of bandwidth are used for peer-to-peer sharing instead of “legitimate” academic tasks, also opening those networks to viruses.
The RIAA is recommending schools institute their own anti-piracy blocking programs, as the University of Florida has done, to prevent students from inciting legal action.
In April 2006, the RIAA, along with the Motion Picture Association of America, sent letters to 40 U.S. universities advising them to monitor myTunes and ourTunes, programs that enable users to download files from nearby residents’ iTunes libraries.
Jim Stone, consulting services director of the BU Information Technology Office, said he is not surprised by the warning notice statistics. Notices pass through Stone before reaching students.
“I noticed it long before [the list] came to light,” he said. “In fact, I’m surprised it took so long.”
As of last night, the RIAA had made no attempt to notify IT of BU’s standing on the list.
“I expect that they will [contact us],” Stone said.
Stone said he does not believe any other schools IT works with were notified of their standings, either.
The 470 notices Stone has delivered already this year are a jump from the 164 issued over the entire 2005-06 academic year.
“They’re going to sue some number of students across the country,” he said. “They have sued BU students before, and I expect they will do it again.”
Stone said before students panic, they should use common sense and simply stop sharing files illegally — something he says they should not have even started doing roughly seven or eight years ago, because they will likely not get a second chance before facing legal action.
“There’s no free ride,” he said. “Every single warning is a serious warning, and it means the person who received that warning is now subject to future litigation.
“If you do it, you should be prepared to pay the consequences,” he added. “If you walk into Campus Convenience on Commonwealth Avenue and rob them, you should expect a problem.”
Though Stone said he has little sympathy for students who break the law, he said if IT does not forward RIAA warnings to students, as it is legally bound to, the office could be held accountable for students’ actions.
“We don’t sue our students,” he said, “but the RIAA does.”
School of Management freshman Manny Dotel said although he received an RIAA notice two weeks ago, the students he has warned have been as careless as Stone said.
“They say they’ll keep doing it until they get one of those letters,” Dotel said.
The letter Dotel received cited him for downloading an application for Guitar Hero, a popular PlayStation 2 game.
It provided the suspect file and tracking numbers, as well as a warning stating, “If you do it again, [BU] will send your name to record companies,” he said it stated.
Dotel was told to delete the files immediately and agree not to download any more files illegally. Dotel said he has been downloading music since the middle of last semester. The irony is, he said, he waited a few months before downloading anything because he was afraid of getting caught, but saw others illegally downloading without facing consequences.
Dotel said he does not use the iTunes service that allows students to listen to nearby residents’ music libraries without downloading them, which the industry has promoted along with free advertising-dependent services such as Ruckus.
“I take the fault, because it’s against the law,” he said. “Since it happened, I haven’t downloaded music, and I don’t plan on doing it – at least not for a while.”