UB students who feel that illegally downloading copyrighted material from the Internet is a victimless crime may soon find themselves dealing with the companies who will treat them as criminals.
Companies that own the rights to copyrighted materials - including record companies and movie studios - hire MediaForce Inc. to monitor the Internet for instances of file-sharing involving their products.
According to Richard H. Lesniak, director of academic services for Computing and Information Technology, MediaForce has targeted computers on UB's network that are sharing "Austin Powers 3: Goldmember."
MediaForce was hired to monitor whether or not the film, which is still in theatres, is being shared via the Internet. Lesniak said the anti-piracy firm has discovered 35 instances of the film being shared by computers on the UB network and sent the list to UB's CIT department.
"We notify the person - it doesn't have to be the student, it could be anybody within our domain - that we've got his particular complaint," Lesniak said. "If they have this particular property, they have to destroy it."
That is as far as the university goes, according to Lesniak, unless MediaForce finds out that the computers they reported to the university have not destroyed the file.
"(If) the student doesn't do that and MediaForce comes back and says (the movie) is still being served, at that point it's pretty simple for (MediaForce) to get a subpoena," he said. "In that case, we'd have no choice but to turn over that person's identity."
According to Lesniak, in order to find users who illegally share files, MediaForce searches the Internet for instances of high traffic, which can indicate that a large file, such as a movie, is being shared. They can then identify, through digital signatures imbedded into the files, if the file is one protected by their company.
It would be easy for UB to monitor the network traffic in the same way - but the university won't do it, according to Lesniak, on the grounds that academic freedom is one of UB's founding principles and because of that freedom, the university does not monitor what files are transferred on the network.
Some people and organizations, including the Recording Industry Association of America, feel that sharing music and movies isn't a victimless crime.
According to RIAA's Web site, the trade group that represents record companies, every song that is downloaded illegally off the Internet takes money out of the pockets of everyone involved in the recording process, not just the artists and the executives of the recording companies.
Jason Lang, a sophomore business/psychology major, disagrees with the RIAA. He said he has downloaded 300 songs through KaZaA this year alone.
"The recording companies are faceless," Lang said. "It's a victimless crime. The artists are rich enough."
The company doesn't feel file sharing is something that should be taken lightly as indicated by a warning on the MediaForce Web site.
"The unlicensed distribution of digital content is a major concern to copyright owners," stated the site.
In addition, the site states that copyright holders in various fields, including record companies and movie studios, will lose up to $4.2 billion this year.
The latest warnings from MediaForce may cause CIT to take action. Since a big proportion of UB's network is being used to share movies and music through programs like BearShare and KaZaA, CIT is looking to manage the network, according to Lesniak.
Lesniak said that the bandwidth on individual computers will not be specifically limited - CIT is only interested in reducing the total bandwidth of all computers on the network.
If someone wants to get a file from someone at UB through KaZaA or similar programs, the connection will be noticeably slow, according to Lesniak.
Although measures to limit the ability to share files over UB's networks have not been taken yet, Lesniak feels they are necessary and warned members of the UB community against sharing copyrighted material.
"You're stealing," he said. "You will get found. Stop doing it."
Despite repeated attempts, the Spectrum was unable to contact anyone at MediaForce for comment.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
