Colleges ‘hotbeds’of music piracy

KATHERINE BRACHELLI ASST NEWS EDITOR KB727@CABRINI EDU

Party-goers and friends are not the only ones hitting up fellow college students to get grabs on downloaded music, movies, video games and software so they don’t have to pay for it, but lawsuits are going after downloaders as well.

Many college students, including Cabrini students, have resorted to using their institutions’high-speed connections to pirate songs, movies, games and other creative content to share with their college buddies.

Erin Morgan, a freshm an exercise science major, said, “Even though piracy is bad, I think it is common on all college campuses. Who wants to pay for music or software, especially when they know they can get it somewhere else and not have to pay?”

With students downloading everything from music to software, college campuses are becoming a breeding ground for software piracy. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst reported that 42 stu- dents are being sued by the recording industry for sharing copyrighted music that was downloaded from i2hub, the fileswapping service they used, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The provider, i2hub, which is no longer running, was a hotbed of music, movies and software piracy. It allowed users to swap files over Abilene, Internet2’s high speed research network.

According to the student legal services office, a campus organization at Amherst that is representing the students in

Shannon Finn, a freshman prenursing major, said, “I know it’s wrong, but it’s great to be able to get a few songs off your friends, knowing that you don’t have to pay.” isa Kent, a lawyer at the legal services office, in a letter sent to Wayne Chang, the creator of i2hub, accused i2hub of “turning users of the product into unknowing i nfringers.” Kent had also stated that if the students had known that i2hub was making their copyrighted information vailable for sharing over the Internet and infringing copyright, they would likely have not used i2hub, opting instead to use legal downloading sites, accordng to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst thought they would not have to pay either. Nonetheless, each of them is facing the fine of $3,750 from the Recording Industry Association of America. Their defense is that peer-to-peer service drove them to piracy, and, little did they know, they were breaking the law. The students are demanding that i2hub pay the damages that RIAAis seeking from them.

The RIAAhas promised to seek legal action to violators, and their main target has been college campuses. It was established in t he Supreme Court case of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., that “the ease of copying songs or movies using software is fostering disdain for copyright protection.”

Colleges are hotbeds of music piracy, and to give students a legal alternative, digital music meisters are pursuing campuses with generous deals through Napster, Cdigix, Ruckus, Rhapsody and iTunes. More than 70 colleges and universities across the country have adopted these legitimate online services, but to truly tackle the problem of piracy, the RIAAbelieves that hundreds of other institutions must also take that step, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Brittany Lavin, an English and communication major, said, “Although it’s not a great thing to do, I would do it. I hate paying for my music when I know I can get it for free from friends of mine.”

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