[DMCA-Activists] Rosen + Penn State Prez on P2P Filesharing

[Seth Johnson]

> http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2003/02/02-27-03tdc/02-27-03dnews-01.asp


Spanier visits Congress to discuss file sharing

By Jeremy R. Cooke  
Thursday, Feb. 27, 2003


In its push to end online piracy, the entertainment industry should not
forget that peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing promises to have valid
educational uses as well, Penn State President Graham Spanier told a
congressional panel in Washington, D.C., yesterday.

"A technology may exist or be created that can block P2P transactions,
but we would be reluctant to embrace technology that would block both
legitimate and illegitimate uses indiscriminately," Spanier said.

He also said colleges and universities are committed to finding legal,
technological and educational ways to end misuse of P2P technology, and
to locating common ground with the entertainment industry on federal
intellectual property laws.

Spanier, who co-chairs a joint committee focused on file-sharing
problems, testified before a House subcommittee on the Internet and
intellectual property yesterday.

He was joined by Hilary Rosen, chief executive of the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA), who said she was pleased college
officials are facing up to the rampant illegal file sharing that occurs
on their campuses.

The joint committee, led by Spanier and RIAA President Cary Sherman, was
formed last year to seek solutions to the problem of online piracy on
college networks.

One P2P file-sharing service estimated that 16 percent of its files at
any given moment were sitting on computers at U.S. educational
institutions, according to research cited by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas,
chairman of the House subcommittee.

Spanier acknowledged that "thousands" of Penn State students illegally
download copyrighted material, as do many of their peers nationwide. He
called the practice "morally wrong, damaging to the entertainment
industry and inconsistent with the values of honesty and integrity that
students more typically profess."

Universities share with the music and movie industries a concern for the
protection of intellectual property, Spanier said. But he said colleges
want to guard against restrictions to "the free and open exchange of
information that underpins the creativity, vigor and productivity of our
education and research programs." Penn State monitors only the amount,
not the content, of traffic on its computer networks, and penalizes
users if they download or upload more than 1.5 gigabytes of data a week.

But when outside copyright holders complain to the university about
suspected infringements, Penn State officials suspend network access for
the users in question, until they can resolve the issue. Spanier said
that in 2001 alone, the university handled 153 such complaints, which
fall under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

Russell Vaught, associate vice provost for information technology, said
Penn State strictly complies with the law, which carries strong legal
penalties, including possible jail time, for instances of online piracy.

Vaught said Spanier's participation in the joint committee on
file-sharing will help to address the extensive piracy here and across
the country.

"I think it's very beneficial," said Vaught, who read Spanier's
testimony, but did not attend the hearing. "We're taking a rational
approach to the whole problem. The simple fact is that copyright
infringement is illegal."

Vaught said Penn State remains committed to balancing students' privacy
and the interest of copyright holders.

Spanier was traveling to Harrisburg through inclement weather yesterday
evening, and was unavailable for further comment.

But Spanier told Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig the congressional
hearing room was packed this morning, and Spanier and Rosen did most of
the talking.