On Campus, Legal Music Services
In an effort to curb rampant piracy among college students, the University of California and California State University systems on Monday announced a deal to offer legal music and movie download services to 600,000 students.
The agreement with Englewood, Colo.-based Cdigix Inc. is the largest since campuses across the country began searching two years ago for alternatives to the illegal peer-to-peer downloading that clogged their computer networks and put students in legal jeopardy.
Cdigix's contract gives administrators at all 13 UC and 23 Cal State campuses the option of offering online music and movie services to students.
Both UC and Cal State also are negotiating with other providers -- such as Napster Inc., Sony Corp. and Mindawn -- in the hope of giving campuses a choice of services.
Individual campuses will decide whether to subsidize the services through student fees, as is done at some schools.
"We're doing this because we do recognize that there is illegal file sharing of intellectual property," said David Walker, director of advanced technology at the University of California, which represents 200,000 students.
"We felt we should do something to encourage legal services."
More than 50 U.S. colleges and universities -- including Pennsylvania State University and University of North Carolina -- already have struck deals to offer legal music services to their students, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America, the trade group for the major record companies.
Fast campus networks make universities hotbeds for illegal file sharing, said Eric Garland, chief executive of Los Angeles market research firm Big Champagne.
Measuring the extent of illegal downloading is difficult because students don't want to admit to doing something illegal and because universities don't spy on their students' online behavior, Garland said.
But that hasn't immunized schools from legal problems.
In 2000, rock band Metallica sued Yale University, the University of Southern California and Indiana University for failing to block the original Napster file-sharing service.
The band dropped its suit after the universities agreed to limit access to Napster on campus.
Napster has since been reborn under new corporate ownership as a legal music subscription service.
