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PEER-TO-PEER PIRACY ON UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, THE INTERNET, 

AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 26, 2003

Serial No. 2

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/judiciary 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., Wisconsin, Chairman 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California

PHILIP G. KIKO, Chief of Staff-General Counsel 

PERRY H. APELBAUM, Minority Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, THE INTERNET, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Chairman

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

BLAINE MERRITT, Chief Counsel 

DEBRA ROSE, Counsel 

MELISSA L. MCDONALD, Full Committee Counsel 

ALEC FRENCH, Minority Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

FEBRUARY 26, 2003

OPENING STATEMENT 

Page 

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Texas, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property .................................................................................................... 1

The Honorable Howard L. Berman, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Courts, the 

Internet, and Intellectual Property .................................................................... 2

The Honorable Ric Keller, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Florida ............................................................................................................... 6

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of California .......................................................................................................... 7

The Honorable Robert Wexler, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Florida ............................................................................................................... 7

The Honorable Anthony D. Weiner, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of New York ................................................................................................ 9

WITNESSES 

Ms. Hilary Rosen, Chairman and CEO, Recording Industry Association of 

America 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 10

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 12

Mr. Graham Spanier, President, the Pennsylvania State University, Co-Chair 

of the Joint Committee of Higher Education and Content Communities 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 19

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 20

Ms. Robyn Render, Vice President for Information Resources and CIO, University of North Carolina 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 24

Mr. John Hale, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Director, Center 

for Information Security, University of Tulsa 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 27

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 29

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Howard L. Berman, a Representative 

in Congress From the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property ......................... 4

Prepared Statement of Molly Corbett Broad, President, University of North 

Carolina, and Co-Chair of the Legislative Task Force of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities delivered 

by Robyn Render, Vice President for Information Resources and CIO, University of North Carolina ..................................................................................... 25

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in 

Congress From the State of Virginia .................................................................. 53

Speech of Jack Valenti, President & CEO, Motion Picture Association of 

America at Duke University, Durham, NC on February 4, 2003 .................... 57

Letter From Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, and Chris Hoofnagle, Deputy Counsel, Electronic Piracy Information Center .......................................... 60

Page

IV

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress From the State of Michigan ........................................................... 65

Letter From Jamie E. Brown, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. 

Department of Justice ......................................................................................... 67

(1)

PEER-TO-PEER PIRACY ON

UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, THE INTERNET, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property will come to order. 

I am going to recognize Members for opening statements, and 

then we will proceed as quickly as we can to hear from our witnesses. And I will recognize myself first for an opening statement. ‘‘The Congress shall have power to promote the progress of 

science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and 

inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.’’ Those words, of course, are from the United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8. 

The wisdom of our Country’s Founders still rings true today. The 

authors of the Constitution understood that the incentive to create 

would greatly benefit the public. And more than two centuries after 

the fact, our lives have been enriched as a result—with inventions 

and products to make our lives easier, and music and movies to lift 

our spirits. 

Following in the steps of the previous Chairman of the Subcommittee, Howard Coble, it is my hope that our work over the 

course of this Congress will help boost the economy, increase productivity, and improve the quality of life for all Americans. 

At the outset, let me say that I am pleased to be associated with 

the Ranking Member, Howard Berman. We have served as Chairman and Ranking Member before on another Committee, and I like 

that particular configuration. Mr. Berman is thoughtful, knowledgeable, and an effective Member of Congress. And I look forward 

to his contributions as we tackle the difficult and complex issues 

surrounding intellectual property law. 

Let me also welcome the other Members of the Subcommittee. I 

know this Subcommittee is a priority to you all, and I look forward 

to your involvement as well. 

Today, the Subcommittee will conduct an oversight hearing on 

peer-to-peer piracy on university campuses. The rise of the Internet 

and new digital media have changed the way the public enjoys enVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
2

tertainment products. One of the advantages of digital formats is 

that they offer extremely high-quality reproduction of audio and 

video. A major disadvantage is that digital formats make the works 

very susceptible to piracy since every digital copy offers a perfect 

reproduction. 

The problem is only exacerbated by peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. While P2P technology has many benefits, it also permits the 

widespread and massive distribution of digital music, movies, and 

software files, which often results in copyright infringement. Industry officials estimate that there are billions of illegal files 

downloaded every week. The result is lost sales to businesses and 

lost royalties to artists and copyright owners. 

The ready access to the file-sharing sites and the ease with 

which files can be downloaded by broadband connections has 

emboldened American university students to engage in piracy. This 

is a serious problem that undermines the protections provided by 

the Constitution. 

Some staggering statistics illustrate the magnitude of the problem. Research of FastTrack, a peer-to-peer file-sharing service, 

showed that 16 percent of all the files available at any given moment are located at IP addresses managed by U.S. educational institutions. In addition, FastTrack users trading from networks 

managed by U.S. educational institutions account for 10 percent of 

all users on FastTrack at any given moment. It’s very unlikely that 

this amount of file-sharing activity is in furtherance of class assignments. 

In an effort to curb university-based piracy, content owners and 

educational associations formed the Joint Committee of Higher 

Education and Content Communities, which will meet periodically 

to address student piracy issues. 

This hearing will focus on the extent of peer-to-peer piracy on 

university campuses and what measures content owners and universities are taking to address the problem. 

Mr. SMITH. We look forward to hearing from the witnesses today, 

and the Ranking Member, Mr. Berman of California, is recognized 

for his opening statement. 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I have real enthusiasm for working with you in your new chairmanship of this Subcommittee. You mentioned you liked the configuration of Chair and Ranking Member. My recollection of the 

last time we were Chair and Ranking Member, we had equal numbers of each party on the Committee on which we were Chair and 

Ranking Member, and I liked that configuration. [Laughter.] 

Mr. SMITH. That was the Ethics Committee, as I recall, is that 

right? 

Mr. BERMAN. I liked the configuration. I didn’t say I liked the 

Committee. [Laughter.] 

In any event, you have chosen for this hearing an important 

issue for your first hearing as Chairman of this Subcommittee, and 

I think it is a good sign that you will focus the Subcommittee on 

both interesting and relevant issues during your tenure. 

Copyright piracy on P2P networks like KaZaA and Morpheus is 

a huge problem. P2P networks are responsible for approximately 

2.5 billion downloads per month. On FastTrack-based P2P netVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
3

works alone, an estimated 3 million to 5 million computers are 

making between 700 million and 900 million files available for 

download at any given moment. 

There is no doubt that the vast majority of these P2P uploads 

and downloads constitutes copyright infringement. Music, movie, 

and television programs constitute an estimated 89 percent of the 

files on P2P networks. As the 9th Circuit clearly held in the 

Napster case, the unauthorized distribution and reproduction of 

copyrighted works by total strangers through a public P2P network 

is copyright infringement, pure and simple. 

As the 9th Circuit also held, no colorable claim of fair use excuses these infringements. The attempt to make such an excuse not 

only ignores the reality of the theft but is an insult to creators. It 

is the copyright owner’s right, not a pirate’s, to choose whether to 

distribute a copyrighted work through a P2P system. If the copyright owner wants to use P2P to distribute his work, that’s great. 

If not, the owner has a right to refuse. 

The argument about the propriety of illegal P2P file trafficking 

should end there. But some try to further excuse this theft. They 

make patronizing assertions that copyright owners actually benefit 

from this massive theft and thus should welcome the usurpation of 

their property rights. 

The truth, of course, is that the P2P file trafficking causes great 

harm to copyright owners. General economic indicators show the 

extent of harm. Revenues from sales of music CDs plummeted 20 

percent over 2001 and 2002, and the sales numbers for January 

2003 indicate more of the same. These sales declines cannot be explained away as reflections of the general economic downturn from 

2000 to the present. 

Economist Harold Vogel has charted a rapid decline in unit sales 

of CDs since 1999, well before the economic turndown, and notes 

that this decline corresponds directly with the introduction of 

Napster. 

The impact on individual creators is also great. Each illegal P2P 

download of a copyrighted song robs a songwriter of 8 cents. Those 

8 cents multiplied by the billions of P2P downloads would mean a 

new life for the vast majority of songwriters who earn less than 

$20,000 in royalties per year. Similarly, illegal P2P downloads of 

television programs destroy the syndication market upon which the 

hopes of many directors, writers, and actors hinge. 

Unfortunately, colleges play a prominent role in contributing to 

P2P piracy. A recent study showed that 16 percent of all the files 

available at any given moment on the FastTrack network are located at IP addresses managed by U.S. educational institutions. 

This means that educational institutions are offering between 111 

million and 142 million mostly infringing files to the universe of 

P2P users at any given time. 

It is imperative that colleges work with copyright owners to stem 

the flood of P2P piracy through their computer networks. As Jack 

Valenti pointed out in a recent speech at Duke University, colleges 

are in the business of creating upstanding citizens who will respect 

the American moral compact. To create such citizens, colleges must 

teach by example, and that example can’t be adherence to the credo 

of ‘‘Do it, if you can get away with it.’’

4

Furthermore, colleges can’t expect Congress to continuously help 

them on intellectual property issues if they do not act as responsible members of the intellectual property system. From laws facilitating technology transfer to those enabling distance education, 

Congress has willingly helped colleges protect or use intellectual 

property. 

As with the collaborative research legislation we may take up 

later this year, I expect that Congress will continue to provide such 

assistance. But the willingness of Congress to address these issues 

will wane if colleges ignore the massive P2P piracy occurring on 

their systems. 

Moreover, their own self-interest dictates that colleges take action to deal with P2P piracy. Bandwidth, security, and privacy concerns really require colleges to get the problem in hand. It consumes an enormous amount of college bandwidth, P2P piracy, and 

as a result, increases bandwidth cost while draining the resources 

available for research and academic pursuits. 

Security concerns should also lead colleges to stop P2P piracy 

through their networks. As Professor John Hale will testify, 

FastTrack and Gnutella, the two most popular P2P protocols, enable the transfers of viruses, the implanting of malicious computer 

programs like spyware, and tunneling through network firewalls 

and filters. 

Concerns regarding the privacy implications of P2P networks are 

also quite real. As documented in the white paper submitted by 

Professor Hale and in a separate study by Hewlett-Packard, P2P 

network users often expose their most private information and correspondences to the whole P2P network. Unwittingly, P2P users 

frequently allow their credit card numbers, e-mail inboxes, and 

even tax information to be shared with other P2P users. 

Mr. Chairman, I have a few more points to make, but I think I 

will shorten my opening statement, which has not been so short, 

and ask for permission to put the whole statement into the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Berman. Without objection, your entire statement will be made a part of the record. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HOWARD L. BERMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Chairman Smith: 

You have chosen an important issue for your first hearing as Chairman of the 

Subcommittee. It is a good sign that you will focus the Subcommittee on interesting 

and relevant issues during your tenure. 

Copyright piracy on P2P networks like Kazaa and Morpheus is a huge problem. 

P2P networks are responsible for approximately 2.5 billion downloads per month. 

On FastTrack-based P2P networks alone, an estimated 3 to 5 million computers are 

making between 700 and 900 million files available for download at any given moment. 

There is no doubt that the vast majority of these P2P uploads and downloads constitute copyright infringement. Music, movie, and television programs constitute an 

estimated 89% of the files on P2P networks. As the 9th Circuit clearly held in the 

Napster case, the unauthorized distribution and reproduction of copyrighted works 

by total strangers through a public P2P network is copyright infringement pure and 

simple. 

As the 9th Circuit also held, no colorable claim of fair use excuses these infringements. The attempt to make such an excuse not only ignores the reality of the theft, 

but is an insult to creators. It is the copyright owner’s right, not a pirate’s, to choose 

whether to distribute a copyrighted work through a P2P system. If the copyright 

5

owner wants to use P2P to distribute his work, that’s great. If not, the owner has 

the right to refuse. 

The argument about the propriety of illegal P2P file trafficking should end there, 

but some try to further excuse this theft. They make patronizing assertions that 

copyright owners actually benefit from this massive theft, and thus should welcome 

the usurpation of their property rights. 

The truth, of course, is that P2P file trafficking causes great harm to copyright 

owners. General economic indicators show the extent of harm. Revenues from sales 

of music CDs plummeted 20% over 2001 and 2002, and the sales numbers for January 2003 indicate more of the same. These sales declines cannot be explained away 

as reflections of the general economic downturn from 2000 to present. Economist 

Harold Vogel has charted a rapid decline in unit sales of CDs since 1999—well before the economic downturn—and notes that this decline corresponds directly with 

the introduction of Napster. 

The impact on individual creators is also real. As I have noted before, each illegal 

P2P download of a copyrighted song robs a songwriter of 8 cents. Those 8 cents multiplied by the billions of P2P downloads would mean a new life for the vast majority 

of songwriters who earn less than $20,000 in royalties. Similarly, illegal P2P 

downloads of television programs destroy the syndication market upon which the 

hopes of so many directors, writers, and actors hinge. 

Unfortunately, colleges play a prominent role in contributing to P2P piracy. A recent study showed that ‘‘sixteen percent of all the files available at any given moment on the FastTrack network are located at IP addresses managed by U.S. educational institutions.’’ This means that educational institutions are offering between 

111 and 142 million mostly-infringing files to the universe of P2P users at any given 

time. 

It is imperative that colleges work with copyright owners to stem the flood of P2P 

piracy through their computer networks. 

As Jack Valenti pointed out in a recent speech at Duke University, colleges are 

in the business of creating upstanding citizens who will respect the American moral 

compact. To create such citizens, colleges must teach by example, and that example 

can’t be adherence to the credo of ‘‘Do it if you can get away with it.’’

Furthermore, colleges cannot expect Congress to continuously help them on intellectual property issues if they do not act as responsible members of the intellectual 

property system. From laws facilitating technology transfer to those enabling distance education, Congress has willingly helped colleges protect or use intellectual 

property. As with the collaborative research legislation we may take up later this 

year, I expect that Congress will continue to provide such assistance. However, the 

willingness of Congress to address these issues will wane if colleges ignore the massive P2P piracy occurring on their systems. 

Furthermore, their own self-interest dictates that colleges take action to deal with 

P2P piracy. Bandwidth, security, and privacy concerns require colleges to get the 

problem in hand. 

P2P piracy consumes an enormous amount of college bandwidth, and as a result, 

increases bandwidth costs while draining the resources available for research and 

academic pursuits. 88% of Residence Hall networks at the University of Indiana 

were at one time consumed with P2P file-trafficking. When Texas Christian University blocked Napster, it freed up 70% of its bandwidth. 

Freeing up network bandwidth by blocking illegal P2P file-trafficking has saved 

colleges significant sums. Kansas State estimated that it saved more than $100,000, 

or a quarter of its bandwidth costs. In a time of shrinking school budgets, these savings are significant. 

Security concerns should also lead colleges to stop P2P piracy through their networks. As Professor John Hale will testify, FastTrack and Gnutella, the two most 

popular P2P protocols, enable the transfer of viruses, the implanting of malicious 

computer programs like spyware, and ‘‘tunneling’’ through network firewalls and filters. Once the networks have been breached, sensitive information can be stolen or 

corrupted, critical university computer systems can be crashed, and university computers can be ‘‘enslaved’’ to carry out Denial of Service attacks. It is these very security concerns that led the House, Senate, and U.S. Courts to disable the use of popular P2P networks on their respective computer systems. 

Concerns regarding the privacy implications of P2P networks are also quite real. 

As documented in the White Paper submitted by Professor Hale and in a separate 

study by Hewlett-Packard, P2P network users often expose their most private information and correspondences to the whole P2P network. Unwittingly, P2P users frequently allow their credit card numbers, email inboxes, and even tax information 

to be shared with other P2P users. 

6

Piracy apologists like to argue that stopping P2P piracy somehow impinges on the 

privacy of file-traffickers. As the Hale and H-P studies show, it is participation in 

file-trafficking itself threatens the privacy of file-traffickers. Thus, colleges concerned with the privacy of their students and other members of the college community should act to stop P2P piracy, not allow it to flourish. 

I understand that I may be preaching to the choir here. The schools represented 

by our witnesses today have all taken dramatic steps to stop P2P piracy from occurring on their networks. Your schools, and you yourselves, are to be commended for 

acting in enlightened self-interest. Rather than preaching to you, I mean to encourage other colleges to follow your lead. 

I am heartened to hear that a group of colleges are meeting with copyright owners 

to discuss ways to address P2P piracy on campus. In particular, I am most interested in your efforts to craft a model policy for best practices that colleges should 

adopt to address P2P piracy. Widespread adoption of such best practices, and the 

self-regulation model they represent, is far preferable to a legislative mandate of 

such standards. 

It seems critical that you develop this best practices model with all speed, so that 

colleges across the country can implement them before the P2P piracy problem spirals further out of control. I hope you will keep this Subcommittee appraised of your 

progress in this area, and of subsequent progress with implementation. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH. And let me say to the other Members, normally I’d 

encourage you to make opening statements a part of the record. 

But this being our first hearing, and I know several Members have 

constituents in the office, I’ll be happy to recognize Members for 

brief opening statements, if they have them. 

I know the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Keller, has an opening 

statement, and he’ll be recognized now. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, if a student walks into a campus bookstore and 

puts a sweatshirt in his backpack, everybody knows what to call 

it. It’s shoplifting. If that same student goes into the same store 

and sticks a CD or a DVD in the same backpack and walks out, 

it, too, is shoplifting. The school has disciplinary policies and pursues them, as they would with any other crime. 

There is no difference if the student takes that same music or 

movie by downloading it off the Internet while sitting in the dorm. 

Colleges and universities have a duty to address these crimes aggressively. School presidents and other administrators cannot 

stand by as taxpayer-funded information systems and tuition dollars are being used to build Internet systems that help facilitate 

unethical behavior. 

Now, that may sound hokey to some people. But schools have an 

important role in shaping America’s future leaders. The fact is that 

no professor can address the ethical transgressions we have read 

about in the business community if his students go back to the 

dorm and commit crimes of their own. There must be a clear and 

consistent message. 

Some students may feel that downloading music and movies is 

victimless. In fact, the theft on college campuses is rampant and 

widespread and undermining one of America’s most important industries. Some students may feel that they can steal anonymously. 

It is noteworthy that we now have the ability to track those who 

are committing online crimes. 

I read a recent article citing a Kent State University administrator who claimed that 40 percent of the university’s bandwidth 

was being consumed by 10 students. An article about Cornell University’s problems stated that over 50 percent of their Internet netVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
7

work bandwidth was for KaZaA, and two-thirds of the KaZaA traffic was outbound, meaning that Cornell was actually facilitating 

theft by people from outside the university. Cornell found that the 

heaviest bandwidth user was using 2,800 times the bandwidth of 

the typical user. 

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for focusing attention on this very 

troubling situation, and I look forward to working with Dr. Spanier 

and other educational leaders to help find solutions that do not disrupt the ability of the university Internet systems to fulfill their 

rightful and lawful education missions. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Keller. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren, is recognized for an opening statement. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I look forward to the testimony today and to the future hearings 

on the issue of copyright and technology. Clearly, we have massive 

infringement going on in P2P networks, and that is a concern. I 

mean, there is no question that that is problematic. 

I am pleased to see that the education community is not simply 

looking at legislation, but looking to themselves to see what they 

might do to be responsible about this issue. And my friend Dr. 

John Hennessy is heading up the education best practices task 

force. I am hopeful that that will be a very positive step for our 

Country. 

However, I also note that it is, I’d say, unlikely in the extreme 

that P2P networks will be eliminated. And in fact, it’s behavior and 

student behavior that needs to be changed so that infringement 

does not continue to occur. Clearly, there are non-infringing uses 

as well to P2P networks, and so universities will tread with some 

caution, I think, on what they do vis-a-vis their students. 

I am hopeful also that we will hear, if not today, in future hearings, what efforts are being made to meet the consumer demand 

for content online because that is about human behavior also. The 

fact that that content interest has not yet been met does not excuse 

infringement, but it is part of the whole behavior situation that we 

need to take a look at. And I am hopeful that as the months go 

on that we will also have an opportunity to look at that. 

And with that, I will not delay the witnesses further, and I yield 

back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren. 

Are there other Members who wish to make opening statements? 

Does the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Wexler, have an opening 

statement? He is recognized. 

Mr. WEXLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to echo Mr. 

Berman’s comments in terms of our looking forward to working 

with you as the Chairman. And I know you have a deep interest 

in these issues and a very fair interest in the past, and it’s very 

exciting for those of us on the Committee. 

I would just like to say a few words, if I could, in terms of the 

issue before us today and the issue specifically with respect to universities. I find it deeply troubling that intellectual property protections are most in danger at our country’s universities, which have 

long been a significant source for intellectual property in this country. 

8

But I have come to understand, even as American colleges and 

universities vigorously protect the intellectual property of their scientists, their professors, and their legal scholars, the property of 

artists and musicians are being widely traded on university network servers with few consequences, at least until very recently. 

At almost any time of the day or night, students are sharing, 

stealing, and downloading songs and movies with easily accessible 

technology on high-speed university networks. However easy this 

file-stealing has become, it is far from justifiable. It is electronic 

theft, plain and simple. And it is on a path to cripple American artists, large and small. 

Universities have always been the strongest bases of support for 

independent music. I’m very concerned that file-sharing, which is 

financially devastating to the entertainment industry, will have the 

unintended effect of killing this kind of small, experimental music. 

For we all know that it is not just the guaranteed successes that 

are most hurt by this theft. It is small musicians, songwriters, and 

artists who will have to find other work if electronic theft continues 

as it has at universities and in the larger Internet community. 

Of course, all stealing is equally reprehensible, but the marginal 

effect of this theft is far more destructive for the smaller, less 

mainstream artists. I would like to quickly bring to the attention 

of the Subcommittee one example of exactly what we would lose if 

this rampant file-stealing continues. 

Since she rose from relative obscurity to win every Grammy for 

which she was nominated last week, Norah Jones expressed her 

creativity and originality and was justly recognized. Sadly, she is 

exactly the kind of artist who might not be heard if this music piracy continues. 

Musicians like Bruce Springsteen and Eminem will certainly be 

hurt by piracy but are essentially guaranteed—virtual guaranteed 

successes, and they can count on having their songs produced and 

marketed. 

But if piracy continues to hurt the music industry, companies 

will no longer be able to take risks with more innovative and cutting-edge artists as they did with Ms. Jones, and we will all be the 

poorer for it. 

Congress’s responsibility is to maintain strong copyright protection laws in order to foster creativity and encourage investment. I 

am by no means suggesting censorship, violating the privacy of individuals, or the dampening of academic debate. 

American universities have been an invaluable source of innovation and debate for this country. This is why I am concerned with 

the effect bandwidth caps and other anti-piracy measures might 

have on legitimate academic research and free speech at universities. And I hope these concerns, I’m sure they will, will be addressed by today’s witnesses. 

While the network restrictions might discourage students from 

breaking the law, they may also hinder legitimate exchanges, and 

it is clear that no simple universal solution will end Internet piracy. I hope, however, it’s equally clear that peer-to-peer piracy 

cannot be allowed to continue, particularly in a setting that purports to teach our children respect for law and American values of 

fairness. 

9

I want to thank President Spanier and President Broad for being 

here today, and I look forward to hearing more regarding their experiences combating this problem. 

As we continue to hear testimony on this important intellectual 

property issue, we all must keep in mind that the overwhelming 

majority of P2P transfers are of copyrighted materials. 

These transfers are theft. There can be no justifying or excusing 

them, and it is the duty of Congress to protect these properties on 

university campuses and throughout the world. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Wexler. 

Are there other Members who wish to be recognized? The gentleman from New York, Mr. Weiner? 

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll be brief. And I, too, 

look forward to your chairmanship of this Committee. 

You know, this is that rare issue that there is virtual consensus 

on the panel and, frankly, probably in Congress that something 

needs to be done to address the problem. Yet we on this Committee 

and, frankly, we in this Congress have always been very responsive 

when all sides have said, you know what, just wait. 

This, like many other aspects of the Internet, is a place where 

we have been encouraged to avoid legislating problems because, 

frankly, technology has often outstripped the problems and outstripped the solutions at once. 

We’ve been told on several occasions that the problem of P2P 

copyright violations and illegal sharing requires a technical solution or, in some cases, might require a public relations solution. Although I would have liked that guy from Limp Bizkit to be in 

‘‘agreeance’’ on fixing this problem rather than the other thing he 

was addressing. 

But we are reaching, I would say, the end of our ropes here. I 

think that there is consensus that has emerged that, you know 

what, we’re going to wait for so long. And while I think all sides 

of this debate is to let us try to work it out, I think the fact that 

we’re having another hearing on this, the fact that Members of 

Congress have said in, as I said, virtual unanimity that something 

needs to be done should be a message to all of those who will testify today and those in the industry as well that, you know, we are 

reaching that point that, on a bipartisan level, that we want to act 

to stop this illegal activity. 

So I would hope that in the testimony we hear today, we don’t 

hear the same refrain that we’ve heard before, which is sometimes, 

yes, we’ve got a problem, but Congress should step back. I’d like 

to be hearing today how long it’s going to be, as these technological 

solutions are worked out, how long it’s going to be before the public 

relations campaign kicks in. 

Because every day constituents of mine in New York City, which 

is a breadbasket for creative activity, people are losing money, losing careers, and these are not the Britney Spears of the world. 

These are the people who help Britney Spears write her—I guess 

they’re called songs. [Laughter.] 

These are people who are, you know, $20,000, $30,000 a year creative artists that are being denied their living because of this problem. 

10

But I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for addressing this so early in 

the session, and I hope it’s just the first step in what will be others. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Weiner. 

And let me thank all the Members who are here for their attendance. We may actually be setting some kind of a record for a hearing, and I hope this kind of attendance continues as well. 

Also, let me thank those of you who are in the audience today. 

There is clearly a high level of interest in the subject at hand, and 

we appreciate your being here as well. 

A couple of housekeeping matters. First of all, all witnesses’ statements will be made a part of the record, as will the speech by 

Jack Valenti at Duke University. And also let me say that we intend to enforce the 5-minute rule. So we hope you can conclude 

your testimony in 5 minutes. If not, perhaps you will have time to 

finish it during the question and answer period as well. And we’ll 

hold Members to 5 minutes, too. 

Let me introduce our witnesses today. Our first witness is Hilary 

Rosen, chairman and chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group representing the U.S. 

sound recording industry. She was named president and CEO of 

the RIAA in January 1998 after more than 11 years of service to 

the organization. Ms. Rosen holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from George Washington University. 

Our next witness is Graham Spanier, president of the Pennsylvania State University and co-chair of the Joint Committee of 

Higher Education and Content Communities. A distinguished researcher and scholar, he has authored more than 100 publications, 

including 10 books. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and 

his bachelor’s and master’s degrees are from Iowa State University. 

And the next witness is Robyn Render, vice president for information resources and chief information officer for the University of 

North Carolina. Ms. Render serves as the primary adviser to the 

university president on information technology. Ms. Render holds 

associate and bachelor’s degrees in information systems from the 

University of Cincinnati. 

Our last witness is Dr. John Hale, assistant professor of computer science and director of the Center for Information Security at 

the University of Tulsa. Dr. Hale has significant expertise in computer security, programming languages, and distributed systems. 

He has published approximately 40 reference articles and one book. 

He received the prestigious 2000 National Science Foundation 

award for his research and educational contributions in the field of 

computer security. 

Welcome to you all. As I say, your statements will be made a 

part of the record. We look forward to hearing from you, and we 

will begin with Ms. Rosen. 

STATEMENT OF HILARY ROSEN, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, 

RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA 

Ms. ROSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Congressman Berman, other Members of the Committee. 

Allow me, Mr. Chairman, to add my congratulations to you as 

you take on the role of Subcommittee Chairman and pledge the reVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
11

cording industry’s cooperation as you go forward on this important 

work. 

And thank you also for your interest in this issue. I think your 

work with the University of Texas has been extremely constructive 

and in large part has resulted in some of the working relationships 

that you’ll see demonstrated here today between all of us in the 

university community. 

This hearing could not have come at a better time, for several 

reasons. The problem of P2P piracy in general is at an all-time 

high for the music community. And while they were a long time in 

coming, legitimate music services have arrived and are being extremely well received, eliminating any possible excuse that some 

may have for engaging in such wholesale piracy. 

And importantly, the unique aspects of universities, given their 

mission and their operations, make the cooperative working relationship that you will see demonstrated here today possible, and 

it’s a welcome model for problem-solving in this area. 

I think by now Members of this Committee have seen a demonstration of peer-to-peer networks and witnessed the fact that a 

majority of the use on them is massive unauthorized distribution 

of copyrighted works. 

That’s not to say that the technology itself is bad. There are certainly multiple legitimate uses for P2P, and hopefully, in the future 

they will be used. 

But the people who run these networks now are aggressively exploiting other people’s property to support their global criminal activity. 

While it’s true that many users don’t understand the legalities 

of their behavior, many others do. And it’s also clear that the operators of these services well know that they’re operating an illegal 

network. That’s why we have to chase them around the globe and 

why they find criminal havens like Vanuatu so appealing for their 

corporate headquarters. 

Caught up in this illegal practice are the thousands of colleges 

and universities whose generous provision of large bandwidth to 

their students, for scholarly and research purposes have resulted in 

their systems being used as a major supporter of these illegal activities. And a new practice outlined in my testimony, whereby students are actually setting up their own networks using the university capacity, is extremely troubling. 

We are very gratified that the leadership of the university community, personified here by the presence of Dr. Spanier, has recognized these problems as mutual and are working with others in the 

copyright community toward solutions. 

It’s obvious why we care about this practice. It may not be as obvious why the universities should care. But as you’ll hear, their 

networks are clogged and their bandwidth costs are skyrocketing 

mostly from people outside their system using the bandwidth to 

steal music and movies that are residing on students’ computers. 

Students are breaking the law, and universities know they have an 

obligation to try and educate them and protect them from such activity. 

There are other reasons as well. Many people believe, as I do and 

as Members here have said, that it’s simply morally wrong to conVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
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done the stealing of other people’s property. And Members today 

have been more eloquent than I could be on this issue. So what’s 

the public interest here? 

Of course, Congress wants our young people to evolve into upstanding young adults, but there are other things that you must 

consider. Many universities and colleges receive Federal and State 

taxpayer monies. So you have a fiduciary interest if their costs increase due to piracy. 

And there are serious threats to people who open up their computer to these networks. Open hard drives facilitate access to significant personal data and risk additional crimes like identity theft. 

The networks are also used for numerous commercial exploits, such 

as pornography being pushed to users. 

The reduction of sales in the music industry has resulted in far 

fewer new artist signings over this past year, meaning frankly that 

the diversity of culture is waning. If bad policies from important 

institutions result in less music and movies and software being developed, society at large is worse off. 

And of course, the protection of intellectual property is in the national interest. During these times of record trade deficits, intellectual property is one of the very few industries that return a favorable balance of trade to the U.S. economy. Protecting that advantage has always been a key mission of this Subcommittee, and its 

leadership here is well known. 

So in recognizing these issues, we are working with the university leadership. I think Dr. Spanier will elaborate some more on 

how this Committee is working. 

My colleague Cary Sherman, RIAA’s president, is the co-chair of 

that Committee with Dr. Spanier. Mr. Sherman is here with me 

today. 

We’re extremely hopeful about the potential for this working relationship, and we’re certainly impressed with the seriousness with 

which it’s being taken. Our goals are simple. We want to find ways 

to help the universities take this problem into their own hands by 

implementing a series of best practices recommendations, which we 

hope will be developed within the next few months. 

Policy recommendations and technical recommendations may be 

the results of our efforts. We have pledged to explore both. Certainly, these will only be voluntary recommendations, and nothing 

we do will force universities to adhere to new practices. 

Nonetheless, our joint Committee has fine leadership and sincere 

commitment. We’re confident that the results of our work could be 

an effective model leading all schools on a path that’s mutually 

beneficial, and we look forward to working with this Committee as 

we proceed on this effort over the next coming months. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rosen follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HILARY ROSEN

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Berman, Members of the Subcommittee, I greatly 

appreciate your inviting me to speak with you on the timely subject of unauthorized 

peer to peer (P2P) file sharing on university and college computer networks. 

Over the years, our industry has benefitted from the emergence of various new 

technologies. The evolution from wax cylinders to vinyl, from vinyl LPs to cassettes 

and then forward into the digital era—CDs, DVD Audio, Super Audio CD, and onVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
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line music services, reflect our industry’s willingness to embrace new technologies 

to provide music listeners greater opportunities to access music of ever greater fidelity when and where they want it. 

Without question, the Internet challenges us to think about the distribution of recorded music in an entirely different way. Whereas we have been accustomed to the 

production of physical products embodying creative works, our companies are now 

fashioning business models applicable to the digital electronic realm. This is a new 

marketplace in which record companies and their licensees seek to establish a viable, vigorous commercial presence. 

Our much publicized skirmishes with Napster, KaZaA, AudioGalaxy, Aimster and 

various other unauthorized Internet P2P systems enabling the massive uploading 

and downloading of files of copyrighted music recordings are not prompted by any 

industry predisposition against the applications or the technology. Rather, it is the 

very evident fact that the sponsors of those systems are exploiting the creative investment of the performing artists and recording companies for their own commercial benefit, without any intention, or credible effort, to obtain licenses or to pay royalties. It is the misuse of technology that must be stifled, not the technology itself. 

We believe that P2P technology will offer great benefits for legitimate uses. 

Needless to say, these unlawful P2P applications have found almost instantaneous acceptance among college students. This demographic group comprises avid 

listeners who have traditionally represented a sizeable portion of our retail markets. 

The scope of illegal P2P file sharing and the consequential detriment to our industry 

is well known. More than 2.6 billion music files are illegally downloaded every 

month on unauthorized P2P systems. Of this number, a significant percentage of the 

transfers occur over campus networks. 

This should come as no surprise. After all, American colleges and universities 

have incredibly fast Internet connections—often as a result of support from the government—which are intended to be used for academic, research and other legitimate 

purposes. It is to be expected that those who want to engage in file transfers would 

likely to choose a university system’s high bandwidth to do so. 

The unauthorized P2P file-sharing problem poses tremendous difficulties not only 

for copyright owners and artists, but also for administrators on our nations’ college 

campuses. Rampant file-sharing of music and video content imposes a heavy toll on 

all of us. Despite education campaigns about the illegality of file sharing, and despite numerous court decisions clearly holding that copying music, movies and other 

copyrighted files is against the law, there is an alarming disregard among students 

for Internet theft. As a result, P2P abuse has overtaxed numerous college computer 

systems, slowing processing of legitimate information to a crawl due to the uncommonly large number and size of files being uploaded and downloaded. Moreover, students are often unaware of the dangers of these P2P applications: compromising 

campus network security, making their own hard drives containing their personal 

data available to others, and opening the campus network to computer viruses. 

Even more alarming is the fact that up to 75% of those coming onto the campus 

networks are people outside the university community who are searching the Internet for the greatest amount of broadband capacity in order to expedite the file transfer. Campus systems, with their fast connections, find themselves hosting total 

strangers. 

Perhaps the newest and most frightening problem emerging on college campuses 

is what we refer to as LANNs—or Local Area Napster Networks. Apparently, some 

students have taken it upon themselves to establish Napster-like systems on university campuses, so that students can copy each other’s files within the university network, which can often be done more quickly and easily than downloading files from 

the Internet. Perhaps these students think that what the courts have found to be 

illegal on the Internet is somehow less illegal if confined to a university network. 

In fact, such systems are no more lawful, and are primarily being used for the same 

illicit purposes, as the P2P systems like Napster that have been ruled to infringe 

our copyrights. We certainly have hope that the university community will actively 

confront this issue and take steps to stop this development before it spreads. 

I’m pleased to say that there have been some very encouraging developments in 

addressing this problem. The entertainment and higher education communities have 

undertaken to work together to address the problem of P2P piracy on college campuses. Last fall, RIAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Songwriters 

Guild of America and the National Music Publishers Association jointly sent a letter 

to 2,300 college and university presidents explaining the severity of online piracy 

and the importance of their active involvement in tackling the issue. We also 

reached out to the leadership of the national associations representing the spectrum 

of the nation’s colleges and universities and they demonstrated their support by 

sending a follow-up letter to the same universities urging them to address the P2P 

14

problem proactively. This started a chain of conversations between the content industries and leaders of higher education leading to the establishment of the Joint 

Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities. The CoChairs of the Joint Committee are Dr. Graham Spanier, the President of Penn State 

University, who is here today, and my colleague Cary Sherman, RIAA’s President. 

For your reference, I have provided a listing of the principal representatives on each 

side. 

During the initial meeting on December 10, 2002, the Joint Committee decided 

to establish three task forces focusing on the following areas: Education/Best Practices, Technology, and Legislative Issues. 

The Education/Best Practices Task Force, chaired by Dr. John Hennessey, President of Stanford University, is working to identify and develop informational materials that will assist educators and campus administrators in educating students 

and other members of campus communities about copyrights, their obligation to refrain from infringing conduct, and the institution’s commitment to respect the rights 

of copyright owners. I emphasize that this task force is looking to craft advisory information, recognizing that each institution has its own policies regarding enforcement of computer usage restrictions and disciplinary actions. Some, like the University of North Carolina have exemplary policies. I would like to thank Dr. Molly 

Broad, who is here today, and I hope that the policy adopted by her university 

serves as an example to many others. Also, this task force will be sensitive to the 

concerns of the academic community on matters of privacy, free speech, and academic freedom. We believe that, with active dialogue on these issues, we can make 

significant headway in lessening the misunderstandings that arise from time to 

time between the two communities over these issues. 

The Technology Task Force, chaired by Dr. Charles Phelps, Provost of the University of Rochester, is taking up an examination of current and emerging technologies 

that can effectively identify online trafficking of copyrighted material and provide 

administrators with the resources to limit or prevent infringing uses of P2P systems. The task force will conduct an initial screening of promising technological solutions and then test them in pilot applications on selected campuses. The results 

will be disseminated to the higher education community affording an opportunity 

to determine which technologies are of greatest benefit to any given institution. We 

expect that a number of technologies will show potential. We’re not looking for a 

‘‘one size fits all’’ outcome. 

The Legislative Task Force, co-chaired by Jack Valenti, President of the Motion 

Picture Association of America, and Dr. Broad, is looking at various issues that have 

come before Congress that affect both of our communities. This task force will provide an opportunity for both communities to work proactively on emerging issues 

and to understand the perspectives and concerns of the other. We’re confident that 

this dialogue will strengthen the relationship between us. 

To sum this up, we think that we are off to a good start in finding common 

ground with the leadership representing the nation’s colleges and universities. 

Given that those institutions are themselves heavily invested in copyright and other 

intellectual property rights, there’s every reason to believe that we can forge baseline understandings upon which we can structure effective strategies and programs 

to educate students and others about music, film, videogame, and software property 

rights and their legal obligations towards them. 

The problems confronting us are formidable. However, we believe that our collaboration with college and universities will bear fruit. Certainly, I would hope that 

sometime in the near future I will be able to report to you that legitimate on-line 

music subscription services, which are now becoming abundantly available, have established a viable presence on campuses and that P2P piracy on college networks 

has receded. 

I again thank you for the invitation to speak with you on this topic, and I would 

be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.

15

ATTACHMENTS


Rosen1.eps
16


Rosen2.eps
17


Rosen3.eps
18


Rosen4.eps
19

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Rosen. 

And Dr. Spanier? 

STATEMENT OF GRAHAM SPANIER, PRESIDENT, THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, CO-CHAIR OF THE JOINT 

COMMITTEE OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND CONTENT COMMUNITIES 

Dr. SPANIER. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee 

today to discuss the important issue of the use of peer-to-peer filesharing on college and university campuses. 

As president of the Pennsylvania State University, I am responsible for the management of an institution that has 24 campuses, 

5,000 faculty, and 83,000 students. 

The misuse of peer-to-peer technology on college and university 

campuses is a serious problem that is now acutely confronting 

higher education administrators. Fully understanding the nature 

and scope of the problem and how to deal with it raises a series 

of challenges that we are working hard to meet. 

As you’ve heard, I’m intimately involved in this Committee that 

is looking at these issues. The purpose of the Committee is twofold: 

to examine the ways to reduce the misuse of peer-to-peer technology on campuses and to attempt to reduce differences between 

the higher education and entertainment communities on Federal 

intellectual property legislative issues. 

I believe we have a process that can make real progress in effectively addressing peer-to-peer piracy on university campuses. And 

I’m hopeful that we can educate our two communities about our 

common and differing interests and concerns with respect to this 

and other copyright-related issues. 

Higher education is clearly on record in agreeing with the entertainment community that copyright infringement is wrong and that 

peer-to-peer file-trading that constitutes copyright infringement is 

illegal and should be stopped. We in higher education understand 

the concerns of the entertainment industry about the impact of 

peer-to-peer misuse on their markets and the loss of opportunities 

that both creators and consumers may suffer as a consequence. 

Moreover, university administrators recognize that our institutions have an obligation, through a variety of mechanisms, to educate our students about their legal and ethical responsibilities, not 

only as members of our university communities, but as members of 

our society. 

We hope, in turn, that the entertainment industry officials and 

policymakers, such as the Members of this Subcommittee, understand the challenges that lie before university administrators in 

trying to implement ways to reduce or eliminate inappropriate uses 

of peer-to-peer without at the same time eliminating legitimate 

uses of peer-to-peer technologies; without constricting academic 

freedom and the free and open exchange of information that underpins the creativity, vigor, and productivity of education and research programs; and without invading the privacy of our students, 

faculty, and staff. 

Let me illustrate how these concerns play out at my own university. Penn State has a vigorous program of copyright education for 

20

our students and employees. Before getting an account, individuals 

must agree that they understand and will comply with Federal and 

State laws in addition to Penn State’s acceptable use policies. 

We also have an indirect enforcement effort. Audio and video 

files are large, and we monitor the amount, but not the content, of 

traffic to and from individual machines. Residence hall users are 

limited to 1.5 gigabytes of inbound or outbound traffic per week. 

There are increasingly severe restrictions for offenders who exceed the limits, beginning with a decrease in the speed allowed for 

network connection. For persistent violators, there is a complete 

suspension of network access. 

The limitation on bandwidth, coupled with the threat of suspension of access, is intended to discourage copyright infringement. 

Additionally, when notified by copyright holders of infringement, 

we comply vigorously with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 

and immediately suspend access until the issue is resolved. We received 153 such complaints in calendar year 2001. 

Although we do not currently monitor the content to detect the 

fingerprints of pirated copyrighted material, we would consider 

such a possibility if technology, functional for a university of our 

size, allowed us to maintain the educational principles to which we 

subscribe. 

Yet despite these educational efforts, despite our compliance with 

the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and despite our technical 

interventions, it is probably fair to say that thousands of our students illegally download some amount of copyrighted material. 

They are typical of college students nationally in this regard and 

are party to a practice that is morally wrong, is damaging to the 

entertainment industry, and is inconsistent with the values of honesty and integrity that students more typically profess. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the 

interest in this important issue that you all have, and I would be 

pleased to keep you informed of the work of our joint Committee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Spanier follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GRAHAM B. SPANIER

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity 

to appear before the subcommittee today to discuss the important issue of the use 

of peer-to-peer file sharing on college and university campuses. As President of The 

Pennsylvania State University, I am responsible for the management of an institution that has 24 campuses, 5000 faculty, and 83,000 students. 

Penn State has actively and comprehensively incorporated information technology 

into virtually every aspect of its mission of teaching, research, and service. Computer networks have greatly facilitated communication between students and faculty, have enabled new pedagogical and research capabilities, and have enhanced 

our campus connections with local communities. Information technology has expanded the educational boundaries of traditional classroom teaching and dramatically increased the potential for distance education. 

Beyond academic uses, information technology and networked communications 

have also improved our ability to establish and maintain personal connections with 

our alumni, with potential students, and with the public. Email, instant messaging, 

and personal web sites enable our students’ ability to reach each other on campus 

and connect with the world beyond the campus boundaries with ease. 

Unfortunately, the same technologies that so powerfully expand and enrich the 

academic and personal experiences of our students and faculty can also be misused. 

The capacity of information technology to be used for both legitimate and illegitimate purposes is clearly demonstrated by peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technologies. P2P technology has the potential to expand dramatically the ease, speed, 

and breadth of information exchange. Such capacity will clearly benefit a wide range 

21

of educational and research activities. Indeed, federal agencies such as the National 

Science Foundation are funding research into P2P development to realize this potential. But P2P can also be used to carry out the unauthorized retrieval and distribution of copyrighted material. 

The misuse of P2P technology on college and university campuses—the subject of 

this hearing—is a serious problem that is now acutely confronting higher education 

administrators. Fully understanding the nature and scope of the problem and how 

to deal with it raises a series of challenges that we are working hard to meet. 

University officials are working with representatives of the entertainment industry to address the problem of misuse of P2P technology. Last October, two letters— one from entertainment industry organizations and one from the six major national 

higher education associations—were sent to college and university presidents. The 

higher education letter urged university officials to examine the use of P2P on their 

campuses and to take appropriate actions to reduce its misuse. 

Last summer and fall, university and higher education association officials also 

began a series of discussions with representatives of the entertainment industry, 

culminating in the formation of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and 

Entertainment Communities, co-chaired by Cary Sherman, President of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and me; a list of the full committee is 

attached to my testimony. 

The purpose of the committee is two-fold: (1) to examine ways to reduce the misuse of P2P technology on campuses, and (2) to attempt to reduce differences between the higher education and entertainment communities on federal intellectual 

property legislative issues. The committee met in December to discuss these issues 

and how to proceed in addressing them. The committee agreed that we would form 

three task forces: The first focuses on educational efforts about copyrights, rights 

and responsibilities, and the appropriate and inappropriate use of P2P file sharing. 

The second deals with the appropriate role, availability, and functionality of technology in managing P2P use. And the third task force will focus on legislative 

issues. 

The work of the task forces is underway. We expect that they will report back 

to the full committee later this spring, and we will soon thereafter conclude our formal joint activity with a final review of task force work, formulation of recommendations, and a consideration of final steps. 

I believe that we have a process that can make real progress in effectively addressing peer to peer piracy on university campuses, and I am hopeful that we can 

educate our two communities about our common and differing interests and concerns with respect to this and other copyright-related issues. Higher education is 

clearly on the record in agreeing with the entertainment community that copyright 

infringement is wrong, and that P2P file trading that constitutes copyright infringement is illegal and should be stopped. We in higher education understand the concerns of the entertainment industry about the impact of P2P misuse on their markets and the loss of opportunities that both creators and consumers may suffer as 

a consequence. Moreover, university administrators recognize that our institutions 

have an obligation, through a variety of mechanisms, to educate our students about 

their legal and ethical responsibilities, not only as members of our university communities, but as members of our society. 

We hope, in turn, that entertainment industry officials and policy makers, such 

as the members of this subcommittee, understand the challenges that lie before university administrators in trying to implement ways to reduce or eliminate inappropriate uses of P2P without at the same time eliminating legitimate uses of P2P 

technologies; without constricting academic freedom and the free and open exchange 

of information that underpins the creativity, vigor, and productivity of our education 

and research programs; and without invading the privacy of our students, faculty, 

and staff. 

A song downloaded or uploaded by a student using P2P typically constitutes copyright infringement; but in selected cases it might also be a fully legitimate, desired 

fair use of copyrighted material as part of an educational or research project. 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. Nor do we wish to stifle the very creativity and experimentation that has brought us the extraordinary technological capacities that enrich our 

lives today. Many aspects of this nation’s capabilities in information technology and 

networked communications were developed on research university campuses; we 

want to be certain that we preserve and nurture that continuing capacity within the 

academic community for creation and discovery. 

Let me illustrate how these concerns play out at my own university. Penn State 

has a vigorous program of copyright education for our students and employees. BeVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
22

fore getting an account, individuals must agree that they understand and will comply with federal and state laws in addition to Penn State’s acceptable use policies. 

The account agreement has a lengthy section dealing with copyright compliance. 

Likewise, when they get additional services they must agree to policies that include 

a proscription against copyright infringement. 

We also have an indirect enforcement effort. Audio and video files are large, and 

we monitor the amount, but not the content, of traffic to and from individual machines. Residence Hall users are limited to 1.5 gigabytes of inbound or outbound 

traffic per week. There are increasingly severe restrictions for offenders who exceed 

these limitations, beginning with a decrease in the speed allowed for the network 

connection. For persistent violators there is a complete suspension of network access. The limitation on bandwidth, coupled with the threat of suspension of access, 

is intended to discourage copyright infringement. Additionally, when notified by 

copyright holders of infringement, we comply vigorously with the Digital Millennium 

Copyright Act (DMCA) and immediately suspend access until the issue is resolved. 

We received 153 such complaints in calendar year 2001. Although we do not currently monitor content to detect the fingerprints of pirated, copyrighted material, we 

would consider such a possibility if technology, functional for a university of our 

size, allowed us to maintain the educational principles to which we subscribe. 

We also employ proactive technical means to disrupt infringing activities. For example, we routinely scan our networks to find machines that have been compromised in some way or another. One of the primary motivators for intruders to 

compromise our machines is the establishment of unauthorized outside ‘‘Warez’’ servers, which are generally used for illegally trading copyrighted materials. In just 

the last few weeks alone, our scanning efforts have located more than 100 such intrusions. Network access to compromised computers is disabled and the illicit software is removed. We also educate the victim whose system has been compromised 

on how to prevent future compromise of their computer. 

Yet despite these educational efforts, despite our compliance with DMCA, and despite our technical interventions, it is probably fair to say that thousands of our students illegally download some amount of copyrighted material. They are typical of 

college students nationally in this regard and are party to a practice that is morally 

wrong, is damaging to the entertainment industry, and is inconsistent with the values of honesty and integrity that students more typically profess. 

I believe that the work of our joint committee’s education and technology task 

forces will identify a number of useful practices that we intend to share broadly 

within the higher education community. 

One of the great strengths of this country’s system of higher education is its extraordinary diversity—public and private institutions, research universities, liberal 

arts colleges, and community colleges. No single set of policies and procedures for 

managing P2P technologies is likely appropriate for all, but if we identify a number 

of educational and technological approaches that have been effective in different settings, we can provide useful examples to colleges and universities that will both encourage and guide them in taking actions appropriate to their local circumstances. 

At the same time that higher education officials are developing and implementing 

educational policies and technological interventions, the content community is developing new business models for marketing copyrighted material, including music and 

movies. I am hopeful that this combination of effort will go a long way to eliminating the misuse of P2P technologies and facilitate the development of the positive 

potential of P2P. 

The capacity for the illegitimate use of P2P is of course not limited to colleges 

and universities. Indeed, the entertainment industry has sent letters to private sector companies expressing their concern about such misuse. Moreover, as this nation 

develops greater broadband capacity throughout society, from K–12 education to 

home connections, we will face the same potential in many other settings. 

This is not a new problem; the nation has faced such challenges with each advance of communications technology—the VCR is but one familiar example. The 

ideal intellectual property model for higher education today, in this new digital territory, is one that finds appropriate and effective ways of balancing, in the tradition 

of Copyright law, the proprietary rights of copyright owners and the limitations and 

exceptions to those rights. 

Let me close by saying that I believe higher education is taking seriously its responsibility to deal appropriately with these new intellectual property challenges. I 

believe our cooperation with the entertainment industry in this effort will help both 

sectors identify appropriate actions to take. I appreciate the interest of this subcommittee in this important issue, and I would be pleased to keep you informed of 

the work of our joint committee. 

23

JOINT COMMITTEE OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT COMMUNITIES

Higher Education Representatives

Molly Corbett Broad 

President 

University of North Carolina

John L. Hennessy 

President 

Stanford University

Charles Phelps 

Provost 

University of Rochester

Dorothy K. Robinson 

Vice President and General Counsel 

Yale University

Graham Spanier (co-chair) 

President 

The Pennsylvania State University

Staff

Mark Luker 

Vice President 

EDUCAUSE

Shelley Steinbach 

Vice President and General Counsel 

American Council on Education

John Vaughn 

Executive Vice-President 

Association of American Universities

Entertainment Industry Representatives

Roger Ames 

Chairman and CEO 

Warner Music Group

Matthew T. Gerson 

Senior Vice President, U.S. Public Policy and Government Relations 

Vivendi Universal

Sherry Lansing 

Chairman 

Paramount Pictures

Hilary Rosen 

Chairman and CEO 

Recording Industry Association of America

Cary Sherman (co-chair) 

President 

Recording Industry Association of America

Jack Valenti 

President and CEO 

Motion Picture Association of America

Staff

Fritz Attaway 

Executive Vice President Government Relations and Washington General Counsel 

Motion Picture Association of America

Troy Dow 

Vice President and Counsel for Technology and New Media 

Motion Picture Association of America

Mitch Glazier 

Senior Vice President, Government Relations and Legislative Counsel 

Vivendi Universal

Barry Robinson 

Senior Counsel for Corporate Affairs 

RIAA

24

Jonathan Whitehead 

Vice President and Anti-Piracy Counsel 

RIAA

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Spanier. 

Ms. Render? 

STATEMENT OF ROBYN RENDER, VICE PRESIDENT FOR INFORMATION RESOURCES AND CIO, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH 

CAROLINA 

Ms. RENDER. Chairman Smith and other distinguished Members 

of the Subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to appear before 

you today to offer one perspective on how representatives from the 

higher education community are working in collaboration with our 

counterparts in the entertainment industry to address concerns regarding peer-to-peer file-sharing. 

The University of North Carolina is the oldest public university 

in America, an institution that encompasses 16 diverse campuses, 

9,000 faculty, and 177,000 students. 

Molly Corbett Broad, president of the University of North Carolina, currently serves on the Joint Committee of Higher Education 

and Entertainment Communities, which has brought representatives of our respective groups together to examine ways to reduce 

inappropriate use of peer-to-peer file-sharing technologies on colleges and universities, as well as to explore prospects for narrowing 

our differences on existing and proposed Federal intellectual property legislation. 

President Broad also serves as co-chair, along with Jack Valenti, 

president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, 

of this joint Committee’s legislative task force. The charge of the 

task force is to discuss current and proposed legislation on which 

we differ to see if we can, through candid exploration of the issues, 

find ways to narrow our differences or develop mutually acceptable 

alternative proposals. 

The relevant issues surrounding P2P are complex, as you are 

well aware. The Academy brings a unique perspective to these discussions, since intellectual property forms the very essence of the 

American university. Our institutions have been built, in large 

part, on the creation of intellectual property and respect for intellectual property of others. 

Within the higher education community, such creation and use 

must be carried out in the context of academic freedom and fair 

use—interests that are sometimes in conflict with those of the entertainment community. 

We are equally committed, however, to addressing unauthorized 

trading of copyrighted material. Our shared concerns form a common ground that is the basis for serious cooperation and dialogue. 

While most universities treat the Internet and attending network 

services as yet another university forum and resource, it is uniformly recognized that the effective management of these tools 

must include upholding responsible use of limited resources, protecting the privacy of students, faculty, and staff, and obeying the 

laws of the land. 

Federal legislation that would force policies and practices prohibiting such acceptable and legitimate use of P2P would threaten the 

25

central values of the higher education community. We believe a 

multifaceted approach is needed, a sensible one that emphasizes 

education and good citizenship; articulates thoughtful, yet adequate 

policy; utilizes appropriate network management tools; and addresses violations when they occur, but only after due process. 

As a representative of the University of North Carolina, let me 

offer a sampling of how our 16 diverse campuses are addressing 

these complex issues. 

For several years now, our campuses have exhibited leadership 

in addressing copyright infringement with special emphasis on the 

issues surrounding student use of P2P applications. During this period, we have monitored increased utilization of bandwidth on UNC 

campus networks and periodically have carried out our proactive 

evaluations and policy reviews. All 16 UNC campuses have adopted 

acceptable use and copyright policies. Our campuses have been 

working together for the past couple of years to find appropriate 

ways to manage network traffic resulting from increased P2P traffic. 

Traffic from major sites has been monitored and throttled when 

necessary to protect the campus networks from excesses and unacceptable usage. Several different solutions are applied, however, to 

the problem, depending upon campus size, network complexity, and 

culture. 

UNC campuses have taken responsibility for educating their students to the legal and moral implications of copyright theft, and we 

are willing to share our efforts with other institutions. 

UNC-Chapel Hill, for example, has created a Web site and a 

companion document entitled, ‘‘Copyright and Acceptable Use on 

the University Network: A Primer,’’ which provides answers to frequently asked questions such as: What is fair use? What kind of 

activities are probable violations of copyright law? What is considered unacceptable use at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? Are MP3s illegal? And what will happen if I get caught? 

Looking to the future, the University of North Carolina awaits 

the results from the Joint Committee of Higher Education and Entertainment Communities Technology Task Force. The staff of this 

task force will perform an assessment of the various software products that are commercially available for use by higher education institutions to protect resources and prevent infringement. 

Once this work is completed, our university will examine past 

approaches and consider next steps. Fortunately, there are laws 

that allow the debate regarding how to approach illegal and inappropriate use of P2P to continue with some very appropriate protections intact. We should shape our IT policies around our core 

academic mission and search for a variety of alternative approaches. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Broad follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MOLLY CORBETT BROAD

Chairman Smith and other distinguished members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today to offer one university 

president’s perspective on how representatives from the higher education community are working in collaboration with our counterparts in the entertainment industry to address concerns regarding peer-to-peer (‘‘P2P’’) file sharing. As president of 

26

the University of North Carolina, I am responsible for the management of the oldest 

public university in America, an institution that encompasses 16 diverse campuses, 

9,000 faculty, and 177,000 students. 

I currently serve on the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, which has brought representatives of our respective communities together to examine ways to reduce the inappropriate use of peer-to-peer filesharing technologies on college and university campuses, as well as to explore prospects for narrowing our differences on existing and proposed federal intellectualproperty legislation. I also serve as co-chair—along with Jack Valenti, president and 

CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America—of this Joint Committee’s Legislative Task Force. The charge of the task force is to discuss current and proposed 

legislation on which we differ to see if we can, through candid exploration of the 

issues, find ways to narrow our differences or develop mutually acceptable alternative proposals. The first meeting of the task force was a casualty of your recent 

snowstorm, but we are working to reschedule the meeting as soon as feasible. 

The relevant issues surrounding P2P are complex, as you are well aware. The 

Academy brings a unique perspective to these discussions, since intellectual property forms the very essence of the American University. Our institutions have been 

built in large part on the creation of intellectual property and respect for the intellectual property of others. Within the higher education community, such creation 

and use must be carried out in the context of academic freedom and fair use—interests that are sometimes in conflict with those of the entertainment community. We 

are equally committed to addressing unauthorized trading of copyrighted materials. 

Our shared concerns form a common ground that is the basis for serious cooperation 

and dialogue. 

Most American universities treat the Internet and attending network services as 

yet another university forum and resource. Technology leaders at these institutions 

therefore follow the guiding principles of academic freedom and fair use in developing policies and practices for network management and policy administration. 

While these core values are consistent throughout the Academy, individual institutions vary widely in their academic missions, cultures, and processes for policy development. It is uniformly recognized, however, that effective management of campus resources must include upholding the responsible use of limited resources; protecting the privacy of students, faculty and staff; and obeying the laws of the land. 

Federal legislation that would force policies and practices prohibiting acceptable and 

legitimate usage of P2P technologies would threaten the central values of the higher 

education community. 

I believe a multi-faceted approach is needed, a sensible one that emphasizes education and good citizenship, articulates thoughtful yet adequate policy, utilizes appropriate network-management tools, and addresses violations when they occur—

but only after due process. As president of the University of North Carolina, let me 

briefly describe how our 16 diverse campuses are addressing these complicated 

issues. 

For several years now, our campuses have exhibited leadership in addressing 

copyright infringement, with special emphasis on the issues surrounding student 

use of P2P applications. During this period, we have monitored the increasing utilization of bandwidth on UNC campus networks and periodically have carried out 

proactive evaluations and policy reviews. Specific actions taken as a result include:

• In the fall of 2000, the UNC Office of the President conducted a Wide-Area 

Network Traffic Analysis to assess the need for a University-wide network 

management strategy.

• All 16 UNC campuses have adopted acceptable use and copyright policies. 

Our campuses have been working together for the past couple of years to find 

appropriate ways to manage network traffic resulting from increased P2P 

traffic. Traffic from major sites for Napster, Morpheus, KaZaa, and others has 

been monitored and throttled when necessary to protect the campus networks 

from excessive and unacceptable usage. Several different solutions are applied 

to the problem, depending upon campus size, network complexity, and culture.

• Using a pass-through state appropriation, UNC contracts for inter-campus 

networking services with MCNC, a unique corporation that offers access to 

advanced electronic and information technologies and services for business, 

government agencies, and North Carolina’s education communities. Working 

with MCNC, UNC campuses are monitoring network traffic consistently and 

developing appropriate strategies to manage inter- and intra-campus networks effectively as the technologies continuously change and evolve.

27

• Network management and monitoring tools are available to assist network 

administrators in managing traffic types and in working within the university 

policy-setting process to effect policy regarding use of the network. Many 

UNC campuses are using such tools, and our plans for building out an upgraded inter-campus network include providing such tools to each campus.

• UNC campuses have taken responsibility for educating their students about 

the legal and moral implications of copyright theft, and we are willing to 

share our efforts with other institutions. Disciplinary measures should be a 

part of and consistent with campus student disciplinary procedures. Education and counseling come first, but violations of state and federal law may 

be prosecuted.

UNC’s two research-extensive institutions—the University of North Carolina at 

Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University—have taken leadership positions 

on the use of P2P applications by clearly articulating campus policies regarding 

copyright infringement and the acceptable use of their campus networks. Information sessions with students are held as appropriate to discuss the issue and to provide guidance and notification of sanctions for violations. 

UNC-Chapel Hill, for example, has created a web site (http://www.unc.edu/policy/copyright—primer.html) and companion document entitled, ‘‘Copyright and Acceptable Use on the University Network—A Primer,’’ which provides answers to frequently asked questions, including:

• What is Fair Use?

• What kinds of activities are probable violations of copyright law?

• What is considered unacceptable use at UNC-Chapel Hill?

• Are MP3s illegal?

• What will happen if I get caught?

Looking to the future, the University of North Carolina awaits the results from 

the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities’ Technology Task Force. The staff of this task force will perform an assessment of 

the various software products that are commercially available for use by higher education institutions to protect resources and prevent infringement. Once this work is 

completed, our University will re-examine past approaches and consider next steps. 

As university leaders, we must adapt to changes in technology and the legal landscape in very technical ways, but in doing so, we must remain grounded in the 

basic, fundamental values of the university and our historic commitment to openness in academic discourse and in the exchange of ideas. Fortunately, there are laws 

that allow this debate to continue with some very important protections intact. We 

should shape our IT policies around our core academic mission and values, and we 

pledge to work with the content community to broaden their understanding of the 

Academy and our need for varied, alternative approaches. 

Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Render. 

Mr. Hale? 

STATEMENT OF JOHN HALE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFORMATION SECURITY, UNIVERSITY OF TULSA 

Mr. HALE. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Berman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to come here and speak on an issue that is of extreme importance to our universities and, of course, to copyright owners 

worldwide. 

As an assistant professor of computer science at the University 

of Tulsa, I’ve seen media piracy on college campuses pace the evolution and growth of the Internet and now experience a true revolution with peer-to-peer networking. 

College students are early adopters of new technology. Unfortunately, many of them have a casual attitude about peer-to-peer filesharing, and most do not appreciate the security implications of 

participating in a peer-to-peer network. 

28

Like other universities, we’re trying to cope with these problems 

without sacrificing student liberties. We’ve responded to complaints 

of copyright infringement and worked to prevent the continued violations of known infringers. We can also block certain types of peerto-peer network traffic, while allowing students to use and enjoy a 

broad spectrum of Internet services. 

The Center for Information Security at TU is also doing its part 

to combat Internet piracy. Changing the mindset of students is perhaps the biggest challenge, but it is our job as educators. 

Aside from piracy, another concern is how P2P software clients 

can produce increased security vulnerabilities. All software has 

flaws, and some flaws create exposures that can be exploited. Several factors, however, conspire to make security exposures in P2P 

software much more serious. 

First, P2P clients connect systems to massive ad hoc networks 

that are beyond the administrative control of an enterprise. This 

dramatically amplifies exposures to external threats. P2P clients 

are also starting to make use of ‘‘tunneling’’ and ‘‘port-hopping’’ techniques to avoid detection by network firewalls and filters. 

Another factor is the emergence of executable media content, 

such as can be found in Microsoft’s Advanced Systems Format and 

the MPEG–4 standard. The scripting environments that support 

these technologies can also be abused. E-mail attachments became 

a popular mode of computer virus transmission only after the introduction of scripting in word-processing documents and Web pages. 

The potential impact of self-replicating code on a peer-to-peer 

network is best seen in the Code Red, Nimda, and Slammer worms 

that targeted Internet Web servers. In the case of a P2P worm, the 

damage could be more widespread and much harder to repair. The 

recipe for this is simple—massive connectivity, exploitable software, and active content. It’s probably just a matter of time before 

a high-profile event occurs. 

Yet another factor that affects the integrity of P2P clients is the 

common industry practice of spyware. The problem here is the 

trustworthiness of the embedded software. Spyware is also, by construction, difficult to detect and disable. 

These threats call for increased technical controls on P2P filesharing. Techniques for monitoring and filtering traffic have been 

developed that work and are relatively nonintrusive. Unfortunately, they will become less effective over time as P2P developers 

integrate encrypted communications. 

For this reason, researchers at the Center for Information Security are exploring alternative schemes to protect media in peer-topeer networks. In particular, we are studying two techniques, 

interdiction and file-spoofing. 

Interdiction swamps the download request queue of a copyright 

infringer so that other requests are starved out. While this approach need not impair general system or network performance, all 

download requests to the would-be infringer are impacted, even 

those that would not constitute a copyright violation. 

With file-spoofing, a group of clients flood a peer-to-peer network 

with search results linked to decoy media. Here, legitimate queries 

go unaffected, but more research must be done to evaluate how 

networks respond to large-scale deployment. 

29

Peer-to-peer network technology is elegant, robust, and it has a 

bright future in computing. But it is experiencing some serious 

growing pains, and this is nowhere more evident than on our college campuses. It will take a combination of efforts on multiple 

fronts to help this promising technology survive its adolescence. 

Users must be made aware of the risks of installing P2P clients. 

Attitudes toward piracy must change, and novel anti-piracy technologies should be more closely examined. 

In closing, I would like to say that there is a lot at stake, and 

not just for copyright owners. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hale follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN HALE

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Berman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I 

would like to thank you for the opportunity to come before you today and speak on 

an issue that is of extreme importance to American institutions of higher education 

and, of course, to copyright owners world-wide. 

As an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Tulsa and as 

an information security researcher, I have seen media piracy on college campuses 

pace the evolution and growth of the Internet, and now experience a true revolution 

with the advent of peer-to-peer (P2P) networking. Broadband Internet access in dormitories and campus apartments has extended the perimeter of the university 

learning environment to beyond the traditional classroom and laboratory settings. 

Coupled with P2P technology, it has also created new opportunities for abuse. 

In particular, the high bandwidth available to college students and ready supply 

of music, movies, software and games courtesy of the most popular peer to peer networks have fostered an environment where piracy on a large-scale is not only possible, but commonplace. It is ironic that Internet2 institutions like the University 

of Tulsa could see a significant fraction of this new bandwidth, which was put in 

place to foster academic research and collaboration, used for illegal file sharing. 

College students are early and aggressive adopters of new technology. Unfortunately, many have an overly casual attitude about file sharing on peer-to-peer networks. Some do not even seem to see any real moral, ethical or even legal dilemma 

with media piracy over the Internet, and most do not fully appreciate the security 

implications of exposing a computer to a wide-open P2P network. 

Like other universities, The University of Tulsa is trying to cope with these problems without sacrificing student liberties. We have responded to complaints of copyright infringement and worked to prevent the continued violations of known infringers. We also have developed the capability to block certain types of peer-to-peer network traffic, while allowing students to use and enjoy a broad spectrum of Internet 

services. 

Moreover, and most unfortunately, our university may have to soon cap (or throttle) bandwidth in the residential halls at the request of our upstream Internet Service Provider, who provides Internet access to most of the four-year colleges in Oklahoma. This technique reduces the flood of network traffic to an acceptable level, 

along the way inhibiting (to some extent) mass file sharing, but also impeding any 

legitimate use of a network that might require substantial bandwidth resources. 

However, alternative traffic-shaping strategies exist that can pinpoint and mold 

peer-to-peer network flows with greater precision. The challenge here is in keeping 

up with new networks and technologies, and in staying on top of the constant game 

of cat-and-mouse played between P2P developers and enterprise network security 

architects. 

The Center for Information Security within the University of Tulsa is also doing 

its part to combat Internet piracy and to raise awareness of unsafe computer use 

practices. Many of our information assurance classes directly address ethics and 

media piracy, and educate students on security issues and operational risks of running untrusted network applications. Changing the mindset of students is perhaps 

the biggest challenge, but it is by definition, our job as educators. 

Aside from piracy, another major concern is how P2P networking clients installed 

on university and student-owned computers can result in increased security 

vulnerabilities in a university network. All software has flaws, and some flaws create exposures that can be exploited to violate the security of a system. Several factors conspire to make the risks induced by security exposures in P2P software much 

more serious. 

30

The first factor is that P2P clients connect systems to massive ad hoc networks 

that are beyond the administrative control of any one enterprise. This extreme level 

of connectivity radically expands the security perimeter of a network. As a result, 

security vulnerabilities in P2P clients are accessible to every user on that P2P network, regardless of their location. In short, P2P clients dramatically amplify exposures to external threats. 

In an effort to maintain a larger network population, P2P client developers have 

implemented deceptive strategies in their clients to conceal file sharing activity from 

users and system administrators. Most of the more popular P2P clients do not totally shut down on an exit command from a user. Rather, they fade into the background, continuing to export shared folder contents. It is only when and if a user 

notices the small client icon in the system task bar that they have an opportunity 

to leave the file trading network. The goal is obvious: Less sophisticated users will 

exit the main interface, but not notice they are still connected to the trading network. Another risk confronts less sophisticated users. Haphazard configuration of a 

P2P client could result in sharing a folder containing sensitive data (instead of 

music), perhaps even unintentionally sharing the contents of an entire hard drive. 

P2P clients are also beginning to make more frequent use of ‘‘tunneling’’ and ‘‘port 

hopping’’ techniques to avoid detection by network firewalls and filters. Tunneling 

embeds P2P messages within another protocol so that they blend in with other traffic, and become more difficult for firewalls and filters to detect. An alternative strategy is for clients to vary the communication ports they use (port hop), once again 

making it more challenging for blocking software to recognize P2P traffic. 

Another factor is the emergence of executable media content. Executable media 

content, such as is found in Microsoft’s Advanced Systems Format and is now possible under the MPEG–4 standard, enriches an entertainment experience by providing multimedia enhancements and greater interactivity. Of course, the expressive 

scripting and programming environments that support these technologies can also 

be abused. Email attachments became a popular mode of computer virus transmission only after the introduction of scripting content in word processing documents and web pages. 

The weak ‘‘viruses’’ that have been reported on some peer-to-peer networks barely 

hint at the real potential of self-replicating code in these environments. More suitable examples can be found in the Code Red, Nimda and Slammer worms that targeted Internet web servers. In the case of a true P2P worm, the damage could be 

even more widespread, it could penetrate deeper into enterprise networks, and due 

to the stealthy nature of the client software, detection and remediation would be 

more problematic. The recipe is simple: massive connectivity, exploitable software, 

and active content. It is probably only a matter of time before a high profile event 

occurs. 

Yet another factor that affects the integrity of P2P clients, is the common industry 

practice of embedding spyware in them. P2P developers bundle spyware in their clients as a way to generate revenue. Spyware monitors user behavior and tracks user 

web browsing habits. The information collected by spyware is typically sold to direct-marketing companies. The problem here is the trustworthiness of the embedded 

software as it is routinely created by unknown third parties. Spyware is, by construction, difficult to detect and may be impossible to disable or remove from a client. 

These threats call for increased technical controls on file trading activity in enterprise networks. Techniques for monitoring and filtering P2P traffic have been developed and do work. And some of these strategies may require no more intrusiveness 

than extracting the ‘‘to’’ and ‘‘from’’ addresses found in packet headers. Even the 

more sophisticated P2P signature detection schemes do not necessarily reveal who 

shares what on a network. 

Unfortunately, filtering and blocking will become less effective over time as P2P 

developers integrate additional counter measures. Ultimately, end-to-end encryption 

of communication channels will make it virtually impossible for system administrators and Internet Service Providers to monitor network traffic. For this reason, researchers in the Center for Information Security at the University of Tulsa are developing and analyzing alternative strategies for protecting digital content in peerto-peer networks. ‘‘P2P Fear and Loathing: Operational Hazards of File Trading 

Networks,’’ a white paper we prepared for this Subcommittee in a September 2002 

hearing, presents some of our early investigations and is submitted as part of this 

written testimony. In particular, we are studying two techniques, interdiction and 

file spoofing, that have been put into practice by some digital rights management 

companies. These techniques seek to impede copyright infringement through direct 

participation in peer-to-peer networks. 

31

Interdiction is a technique that swamps the download request queue of a copyright infringer so that other requests are starved out. This counter measure constitutes a high-level Denial of Service attack on a P2P client, but does not necessarily impair general system performance or the performance of the underlying 

network. One undesirable side effect of this approach is that all download requests 

to the would-be infringer are impacted, even those that would not constitute a copyright violation. 

Like interdiction, file spoofing inhibits copyright infringement through direct participation in peer-to-peer networks. However, while interdiction attacks the 

download process, file spoofing targets the search process. In this approach, a collection of clients flood a peer-to-peer network with bogus search results linked to decoy 

media. File spoofing has one advantage in that legitimate queries can go unaffected, 

but more research needs to be done to evaluate how a network would respond to 

large scale deployment. 

Peer-to-peer network technology is elegant, robust and has a bright future in computing. But it is experiencing some serious growing pains, and this is nowhere more 

evident than on our college campuses. It will take a combination of efforts on multiple fronts to help this promising technology survive its adolescence. Users must 

be made aware of the risks of installing and running P2P clients on personal and 

enterprise networks. Attitudes towards piracy must change. And the potential of 

novel anti-piracy technologies should be more closely examined. There is a lot at 

stake, and not just for copyright owners.

32

ATTACHMENT


Hale1.eps
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Hale5.eps
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hale. 

It seems to me that one of our goals today is to try to determine 

what model works and also try to measure just how successful the 

models to date have been. Penn State and UNC have been setting 

the pace, I think, on college campuses today as to what should be 

done and can be done. And that sort of will be the line of questioning that I’m going to embark on. 

Ms. Rosen, let me direct my first question to you. In your prepared statement—and by the way, I should say to you, I know 

you’ve announced that you’re going to be leaving your position at 

the end of the year. We’re all going to miss you. 

Ms. ROSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. But I appreciate your being here today, particularly 

since I know you haven’t been feeling well. So thanks for making 

the effort. 

In your prepared testimony, you said you expected a number of 

technologies will show potential, and you say that you hope in the 

future that legitimate online music subscription services will have 

a greater presence on campuses. 

But what is the goal of the RIAA? How much do you want to reduce campus piracy? What will you consider to be a success from 

implementing the education, the enforcement, the technology? 

Ms. ROSEN. That’s an excellent question and one which doesn’t 

have an easy answer. I think no one is under the illusion that 

we’re going to stop peer-to-peer activity or eliminate online piracy. 

I think what we want to do, though, is get it to a point where the 

legitimate business is actually thriving online and so that there is 

a chance for new investment, new artists, and new opportunities 

in the online area. 

And right now, that’s just being drowned out. So that there has 

been, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in 

bringing legitimate services online. And so, we have to find—right 

now, the balance is somewhere like this. I think we’d like it to be 

somewhere around here. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. So far, have you seen any appreciable reduction as a result of these various measures? 

Ms. ROSEN. No. I think to date what we’ve seen is that these 

companies are having an extremely difficult time competing with 

free, if you will. And in large measure, I think that will continue. 

Mr. SMITH. That’s a tough business model to compete with, when 

the competition is free. You’re right. 

Dr. Spanier, let me go to you, and thank you for your forceful 

comments as well and for what you’re doing on campus. 

As a result of these efforts—and as I say, I think you’re leading 

the way—have you seen any reduction because of your educational 

and enforcement efforts? Have you quantified your success? 

Mr. SPANIER. It’s hard to know for sure because we have so many 

students and our networks are so large. I suspect what has happened, if I can guess at the trend, is that the infringement—the 

gross infringement by smaller numbers of students who, if we provided them unlimited bandwidth, would have continued to explode. 

That has been curtailed because we do have this—we have, 

through technological means, narrowed the pipe for them. We’re 

just not permitting massive infringement. 

38

But what I think still exists is that we have thousands of our 

students who do a modest amount of it, and therein lies the problem. If you have thousands of students at a large university like 

ours who are doing some of it, you multiply that by all of the college students in the country, it is a problem of the magnitude that 

several of you summarized. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. On the Penn State campuses, what would be 

your guess as to what percentage you have reduced that illegal 

downloading? It would be 10 percent or more or less? 

Mr. SPANIER. It would be hard to say. Again, I think we have reduced substantially the illegal downloading of some infringers who 

were doing it in a very substantial way. But we still undoubtedly 

have a lot of students who are doing some of it. 

It’s also fair to point out, and I think one could discern this from 

several of our comments, that for a university like ours, as near as 

I can tell, somewhere in the neighborhood of three-fourths of the 

activity on our network——

Mr. SMITH. Is off campus. 

Mr. SPANIER. Exactly. Is people coming in from outside and using 

our students’ computers to upload material that is leaving the campus. 

We have done something that I don’t think very many universities have done. We’re employing some proactive technical means 

to disrupt infringing activities by routinely scanning our networks 

to find machines that have been compromised in some way or another. 

And one of the primary motivators for intruders to compromise 

our machines is the establishment of unauthorized outside ‘‘Warez’’

servers, which are generally used for illegally trading copyrighted 

material. Just since January 1st of this year, we have found over 

100 such intrusions into computers of our students in our own residence halls. 

We go in. We take them off-line. We help them fix their computer, and then we educate them about what’s happening. And this 

really is a very good example of what our technical expert here was 

describing. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. Thank you, Dr. Spanier. 

Ms. Render and Dr. Hale, I hope to have a chance to ask you all 

some questions later on. Right now, I’ll recognize the gentleman 

from California, Mr. Berman, for his questions. 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I 

join you in expressing best wishes and appreciation for the work 

of Hilary Rosen in her stewardship of the RIAA. She is rock-n-roll. 

No. [Laughter.] 

And she gives as good as she gets, and she gets it a lot, and from 

all sides. And does it with grace and wisdom and skill, and we’re 

going to miss her. But hopefully, this isn’t her farewell song today. 

The academic witnesses are, in the context of all of this problem, 

the good guys. They all represent institutions and organizations 

that are sensitive to the problem, are focused on the problem, are 

trying to do some things about the problem. And I appreciate that, 

and I hope you won’t take my questions as hostile. 

39

But I do see in your testimony some flaws in your software, and 

I would just like to exploit them a little bit. That sounds weird. No. 

[Laughter.] 

Let me start with President Spanier. You acknowledge the infringing nature of this activity. But your testimony is reluctant to 

support blocking P2P transactions because, in selected cases, there 

might be a fair use? 

Mr. SPANIER. Yes. 

Mr. BERMAN. In the context of the uploading and downloading 

we’re talking about, where you’re spreading it to thousands and 

thousands of people, could you explain to me that hypothetical case 

of fair use? 

Mr. SPANIER. Yes. Well, as I said only very briefly, there are 

clearly legitimate uses of peer-to-peer file-sharing. I would agree 

with Hilary Rosen that that is not typically how that technology is 

used now. 

Mr. BERMAN. I’m just trying—but you talked about there certainly are—there are authorized works being distributed probably 

that we all know and none of us want to ban P2P networks. 

Mr. SPANIER. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. BERMAN. So I think we should take that off. That’s not something Congress, I think, is seriously contemplating. 

But you put it into the context of a fair use, a copyright protected 

work whose distribution on a P2P system would be a legitimate 

fair use. And I’m just wondering what that example is. 

Mr. SPANIER. Well, the example is not any different than it has 

been for decades in copyright law in the United States. There are 

many, many examples when we had printed material, where professors and students and librarians would recognize that it was 

quite legitimate for instructional, research, and other academic 

purposes to make fair use of copyrighted materials, which might include using excerpts or taking material and using them in legitimate way in a classroom setting. 

And it is also the case that in a digital environment, there may 

be some legitimate fair use of copyrighted materials. 

Mr. BERMAN. Remember, we’re talking about distribution on a 

peer-to-peer system that has millions of people. I’m trying to understand what—I know all kinds of examples of fair use. 

Mr. SPANIER. Well, if, for example, we have a faculty member 

who is in the School of Music or in our program in integrative arts 

or someone teaching cultural studies who is looking at the impact 

of certain types of music in our society, and part of a classroom assignment is for students to learn about the music or analyze the 

lyrics, it would be quite legitimate, I think, to look at that music, 

to use it, to have it be part of the classroom presentation. 

It would be legitimate for a doctoral student who was doing a 

study of cultural trends to look at these questions. Those would be 

examples off the top of my head. 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, I couldn’t agree more. But none of that involves uploading a copyrighted work of music in its entirety onto 

a system which then allows it to be distributed to millions of people. 

Mr. SPANIER. To millions of people? No, absolutely not. 

Mr. BERMAN. But that’s what this file-trading on P2P systems is. 

40

Mr. SPANIER. Well, quite right, and I would be the first to acknowledge that, that the principal use at the moment of the peerto-peer file-sharing technology is to illegally download or upload to 

others copyrighted material. And that is wrong, and that is something we have to cooperatively work at stopping. 

What we’re concerned about in the higher education community 

is not throwing the baby out with the bath water. We want to protect fair use in all of its respects, not just in relation to music. This 

is a much larger issue for our community of librarians and for our 

network administrators and for our researchers than just music. 

Secondly, we want to recognize that there is a lot of marvelous 

research going on on the use of peer-to-peer networks, which is still 

in its infancy. And unfortunately, in its infancy, it’s mostly being 

used improperly. But it has great opportunities in the scientific 

community to be used well, and there are even studies being funded by the National Science Foundation to help work on that technology. 

Mr. BERMAN. My time is up, so I don’t have any time for more 

questions. But let me just say in—there are—universities are using 

blocking technologies to stop legal activities—spam, pornography— because only certain kinds of obscenity which—pornography which 

meet an obscenity standard are illegal. They’re using—and, in 

many cases, thereby blocking legal transmissions. 

They’re not drawing some kind of calibration which says because 

there is something legal that might be taking place, we can’t use 

any blocking technology. There are a thousand different ways to 

make sure that fair use rights are ensured: e-mails—digitally—emails, limited networks that aren’t publicly accessible to ensure 

that this kind of research and collaboration and instruction can 

take place using copyrighted works in ways that are acknowledged 

to be fair use. 

I just think it’s funny to prevent any blocking technology here because there is a theoretical possibility of a fair use, which I can’t 

quite put my finger on, when there are many other ways to distribute it. And then to use that same blocking technology for a variety of other efforts, to stop hate speech and pornography and 

spam, some of which is clearly legal communications. But thank 

you. 

Mr. SPANIER. There have been efforts to block certain things. It 

turns out, at this point in time, they’re not all that successful because people have found so many ways to defeat them. 

But this, in fact, what you’ve just described, and it’s an excellent 

point, is the charge to our technology Subcommittee, to explore the 

different technologies that are out there, to study them, sponsor 

pilot studies, and ultimately to come up with solutions that universities could use if they so choose to use them. 

We’re not sure a one-solution-fits-all outcome is workable. But we 

want this Committee to survey what’s out there, test it, present 

them to the university community. And I think when we have that 

and when we know what’s really possible and what will work, I do 

expect that some universities will adopt some remedies that go beyond what I’ve described at Penn State. 

And as I mentioned in my comments, Penn State would be willing to go even further if we knew that it worked and that it could 

41

really be done well, could be ramped up to a university of our size, 

which, for example, transmits 3 million electronic e-mail messages 

a day, and not all solutions, it’s clear, would work for our systems. 

We’d be willing to look at something like that. 

Mr. SMITH. Dr. Spanier? We need to move on. Thank you for 

your comments. 

Thank you, Mr. Berman. 

The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Jenkins, is recognized for 

his questions. 

Mr. JENKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Spanier, you perhaps approached this, but nothing has been 

said about going down to the U.S. Attorneys Office or the local district attorney in an effort to stop this illegal practice. 

Has your legal staff, have they gone to the U.S. Attorneys Office 

or to the district attorney’s office in an effort to present whatever 

cases you may have knowledge of? 

Mr. SPANIER. No. We don’t typically handle the problem that 

way. As I mentioned——

Mr. JENKINS. Well, if on your campus, you had an assault and 

battery or you had a robbery or you had a murder, you would go 

down to the local district attorney’s office, would you not, and consult with them? 

Mr. SPANIER. Here’s how we view it at the university. We are, 

first and foremost, educational institutions. The lion’s share of our 

students are in that transition from adolescence to adulthood. So 

our approach, first of all, is an educational one. We try to educate 

them. 

If that educational approach doesn’t work, we restrict their service or deny them access. If we find that they are repeat offenders 

and trying to circumvent our systems, then they are charged 

through the university’s judicial affairs process, and their status at 

the university as a student can be affected. They can be suspended, 

expelled. 

We look to those kinds of mechanisms before we would ever want 

to put this into a criminal situation. 

Mr. JENKINS. And you’re doing as much as anybody in the country, and I, too, compliment you for it. But let me ask Ms. Rosen, 

and you’re not in this business to provide an educational opportunity, have your folks gone down to the U.S. Attorneys Office or 

the district attorney’s office? 

I know there are some statutes. I know early on there were some 

test cases. They wound up with acquittals. But since then, the law 

has been changed. And so, have you gone down to the U.S. Attorneys Office or the district attorney’s office in the States? 

Ms. ROSEN. Well, I think we should separate this into two areas. 

On the university side, we actually send about 2,500 notices a 

month to universities around the country when we see egregious 

users uploading files, making files available. And usually, you 

know, to a university, they take them down or they deal with the 

student or they address it. 

So, really, where we have—and that’s why we’re focusing now 

with the university community on deterrence as opposed to punishment. And what we are looking at, though, in the rest of the 

world—I mean, there are obviously other bandwidth providers like 

42

ISPs have not been as cooperative as universities are, and that 

issue, indeed, is in court. 

But there are Federal criminal statutes that affect this. And we 

have also encouraged the Department of Justice to look at deterrence programs because their use is so widespread. 

Prosecution on individual basis is extremely difficult. But deterrence might be an avenue for them to go down as well. 

Mr. JENKINS. Now, Ms. Render, you were not as sure as the others that those criminal statutes might be effective, as I understood 

your testimony. Is that right? I believe you said there were considerable roadblocks that were placed in the way of policing this? 

Ms. RENDER. I’m not exactly sure which of my comments you are 

referring to. But let me reiterate that, very similar to Penn State, 

I mean, we have levels of offense. And what we have found, not 

being able to quote specific numbers, but on most of our campuses, 

only about 1 percent are repeat offenders after they have gone 

through some form of education and an attempt for remediation as 

to any kind of potential infringement of copyright material. 

Talking about some of the, I guess, roadblocks or complications, 

I think there are still questions about the universities’ obligations 

and responsibilities. I think there are competing laws around privacy and other issues that we have to take into consideration. And 

so, because it’s multifaceted, I think that’s the primary reason for 

a very careful and deliberate approach. 

Very encouraged by the potential of the outcome of the work of 

the technology task force particularly that might give us further information about how we can use the technology in a way that will 

not be conflicting between those laws of privacy and those laws 

protecting copyrighted material. 

Ms. ROSEN. Mr. Jenkins, could I just comment briefly on the law 

for 1 minute? 

Mr. JENKINS. Sure. 

Ms. ROSEN. The law is clear in this area that making files available for the distribution to millions of strangers on P2P networks 

is illegal. And there has never been an acquittal. The criminal statutes are clear, as the civil statutes are clear. There is no privacy 

issue associated with that. The——

Ms. RENDER. If I could——

Mr. JENKINS. Well, Ms. Render, if 1 percent of your students at 

the University of North Carolina were repeat offenders in assault 

and battery, would you give them the same consideration as you 

give these offenders, these repeat offenders in this area? 

Ms. RENDER. Well, it’s my assessment that we treat students 

pretty consistently regardless of the type of crime or potential 

crime that is—that they may be accused of. And so, in the very 

same way, I think that our students are initially given a first 

chance, an opportunity to be educated and informed. And then as 

the severity of their conduct or their crime increases, we take more 

severe action. 

Clarifying on my comment, what I was referring to was not a 

conflict in the law from the standpoint of whether or not copyright 

is criminal, I was talking about the responsibility a university has 

as far as following the law of the land and also following laws relVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
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ative to privacy and protection. As far as things like divulging the 

names of students, et cetera, was the example I was giving. 

Mr. JENKINS. Thank you, ma’am. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters, is recognized. But Ms. Waters, would you yield 

to me for a second? 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. I wanted to follow up on Mr. Jenkins’s question of Ms. Rosen and ask her very, very quickly if you would ever 

consider taking legal action against individuals? 

Ms. ROSEN. Well, right now, nothing’s off the table. I think in the 

university environment, we are extremely optimistic that the universities are not taking the position that Ms. Render just articulated, that they don’t have an obligation to notify students of 

wrongdoing. And even better, that Dr. Spanier and his colleagues 

are leading a proactive effort on deterrence. 

But with regard to the rest of the use, you know, we have clearly 

and publicly repeatedly said that nothing is off the table now. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Rosen. 

Thank you, Ms. Waters, and you are recognized. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much. I’d like to ask any of the witnesses representing universities, have you ever expelled anyone because of the illegal and inappropriate use of a P2P? At Penn State? 

Mr. SPANIER. To my knowledge, we haven’t expelled anyone. And 

the reason probably is by the time they get into that zone, if I’m 

remembering right, we give them three chances at Penn State. By 

the time they get to that point, we have closed down their access 

to our networks entirely. They’re not allowed to use it, so they 

don’t—they don’t get a fourth chance. 

Ms. WATERS. But basically, they are allowed to break the law 

three times before——

Mr. SPANIER. What we do is we’re not making a determination 

at that point about whether they’re breaking the law, because we 

have not gone in and taken their computers to see what’s inside 

of them. 

What we have done is given them ample warning that they are 

exceeding their permitted use of the university’s bandwidth, which 

has given us the suspicion, unless they can come up with a compelling reason, we have assumed that they are illegally 

downloading—— Ms. WATERS. Doing something illegal. Okay. 

Mr. SPANIER [continuing]. Music or videos. And so, when they get 

to that third infraction, their use is suspended entirely. So that’s 

usually how it ends. 

Ms. WATERS. Does anyone else know of any instance where a student has been expelled from university because of the illegal and 

inappropriate use of P2P? 

Ms. RENDER. No. 

Ms. WATERS. No? All right. Let me just say this, I’m a little bit 

torn, a little bit torn about all of this because we encourage our 

students to be creative and curious and aggressive in the use of 

new technology, and I think that spirit dominates in this—in this 

society. And it’s too bad that it does come in conflict with—that 

spirit—with some of the laws relative to copyright. 

44

However, I don’t know if I can be of very much help as we discuss this issue because the fact of the matter is the universities of 

America are not going to criminalize America’s middle-class children. You’re just not going to do it. 

Perhaps if this was taking place in a regional occupation center 

in an inner-city, where kids were basically stealing other people’s 

intellectual property, we’d see some movement. I don’t think this 

Committee is going to do very much. I don’t think the universities 

are going to do very much. 

The fact of the matter is, while I’m sympathetic to the young people, they’re breaking the law. And it’s a double standard here. 

And unless the university is willing to get tough—I mean, this 

business about ‘‘we suspect,’’ and ‘‘we have limited the amount of 

use,’’ and ‘‘we go in and we check and we verify,’’ and by that time, 

it’s too late. They have been stealing for 4 years, and then they’re 

gone, I mean, that’s just not—that’s not acceptable. I mean, you 

know? 

I know what you’re saying, and I know what you don’t want to 

do. And I don’t think that a public relations campaign—I think it 

should go on. But I don’t think it should be a substitute for hardcore offenders who are in these universities. 

And this business about limiting their use, they just go to their 

friends. I mean, they get together with this, and they go down the 

hall somewhere and it just continues to go. 

And until the university or this Committee is willing to do something about it, we’re just wasting everybody’s time. I wish I could 

be more helpful, but it’s pretty clear to me. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SPANIER. If I could just——

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Waters. 

And, Dr. Spanier, if you’ll be very brief in your response? 

Mr. SPANIER. Yes, I just want to follow up on what you’re saying 

because I understand your point, and it’s an excellent one. But let 

me point out that the universities are actually trying to do something about this. We do have some opportunities to get a handle 

on this, and that is what we’re working on. 

But let me point out that the universities are not the majority 

of the problem. The majority of what we’re describing here is happening outside of the Nation’s universities. 

Now with bandwidth of the kind we’re talking about increasingly 

available right into the homes and into K–12 and everywhere else, 

it is a national problem that doesn’t just rest squarely on the shoulders of the universities. 

So even if we are successful in solving this problem, and we 

are—we want to. We’re working on it. It still doesn’t change the 

fact that it’s a broader issue. Hilary and her colleagues sent a letter to corporations across the country asking them to get a handle 

on this as well. 

And so I would just say that as your Committee works on this 

and takes action, please do keep in mind that the university is one 

part of the problem. But here we’re actually working on it, and the 

rest of it is still going to be out there. 

Ms. WATERS. If the gentleman will yield, today we’re just dealing 

with the university. And of course, wherever crimes are being comVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
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mitted, the law should be applied. And this Committee certainly 

would support any efforts to use the law against those who are in 

violation. 

But today, we really are just talking about the university today. 

And just because it is being done outside, it certainly doesn’t make 

it right for it to be done in the corporation or in the university or 

anyplace else. But I appreciate your problem. 

Mr. SPANIER. I agree. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you. 

Mr. SPANIER. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, again, Ms. Waters. The gentlewoman 

from Pennsylvania, Ms. Hart, is recognized for her questions. 

Ms. HART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I happen to agree with Ms. Waters on that point. If it’s 

against the law, it’s against the law. And it shouldn’t matter 

whether it’s a university student or somebody at home. 

I mean, our issue is—I think a large part of it is education, and 

that is education of young people to the fact that this is wrong, but 

they need more than that. If there is no consequences, as we all 

know, there won’t be a change in behavior. 

Ms. Rosen, I have a question regarding some information we 

heard from a 2002 Consumer Trends Report that noted that filesharing is also growing with younger children—teenagers, 12–18, 

who are not college students. Does the Recording Industry Association have any program where they work with high school students 

to try to replicate some of the things you’re doing on college campuses, first? 

And if you are doing that, are you learning—some of the information that you’re learning with universities, is that being applied 

also with the younger children? 

Ms. ROSEN. You’re right that probably, in some respects, the fastest and most disturbing growth in this area is the 12- to 18-yearold. In some respects, we think that’s because it’s so penetrated at 

universities, it’s leveled out. There is no more growth. It’s just 

prevalent. 

But they’re doing it from home, not from their schools. They’re 

doing it because mom or dad has bought broadband access, or 

they’ve convinced them to buy it. And so, we have done some—had 

some conversations at the high school level. And we did a program 

with Scholastic on this. 

But really, it’s an education that has to be done more directly 

with parents. Parents have to feel that they are, in providing the 

service at their home, doing—putting their kids in legal jeopardy 

if they’re not educating their own kids. 

And that’s why we’ve focused our efforts really more at the 

adults on the legality side and the kids on telling them what the 

artists and the musicians think about it. 

Ms. HART. The universities both, I think, have stated that you 

do educate the students as to what is proper and correct and legal 

usage. Have you had any cooperation with schools like, you know, 

K–12—I guess, not K—but you know, the older kids through senior 

year at all in cooperation with maybe the high schools in your communities about this? Or is it something that you just do as a responsibility within your own universities? 

46

Ms. RENDER. I think that our focus has definitely been with the 

incoming freshmen, starting with the incoming freshmen and the 

students throughout their career at the university. I think, however, though our communications, particularly with the K–12 community and the fact that it’s becoming increasingly common for a 

sharing of education network provisioning between K–12 and the 

university community, that it’s a topic that’s being discussed more 

so with the administrators and technical folk rather than focus on 

the public relations piece. 

Ms. HART. Okay. Thank you. Same at Penn State? 

Mr. SPANIER. Yes, we really start the process the day they arrive 

for freshman orientation, even before they’re students. But after 

they’ve enrolled in the university, when they apply for their computer account, they have to go through an educational program and 

agree to certain things before we’ll give them an e-mail address 

and let them onto the network. 

Ms. HART. Are they told that there are any consequences for violating——

Mr. SPANIER. Oh, yes. Yes. And by the way, that is—we have a 

whole program of education that continues. We have posters. We 

take out advertising. It’s fairly extensive. Our efforts to reach the 

students and to try to get them to understand what’s involved here 

are very extensive. 

But you know, it’s a little bit like cheating in the classroom. I 

think any of you who have taught would understand this. When we 

give—our students basically have been brought up with the right 

values. They understand—they do understand right from wrong 

when they come to college. And we have told them, even if they 

didn’t know it already, that it’s wrong to be doing what they’re 

doing. And they know it’s wrong to cheat in the classroom. 

Most of our students want proctors at the exams so there will be 

no cheating, and there will be an even playing field. And they will 

then follow the rules. But a lot of students will cheat if they are 

in a classroom and nobody cares whether they’re cheating. And I 

think we have a little bit of that kind of phenomenon here. It is 

something that they can get away with, and therefore they do. 

And as Hilary and others have said, it’s very hard to compete 

with free. So people are doing it around them, and they have come 

to convince themselves that it’s okay to do this. We’re telling them 

it’s not. But I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re so intent 

on looking at the possibility of even more significant technical solutions. 

Because if we can find a way to prevent it from happening without violating some of the other values that are very important to 

us in the higher education community, then it’s something that 

many of us would be willing to try, and the students would, of 

course, just have to accept that. 

Ms. HART. Well, I would thank you for that. I know my time is 

up. But I would really counsel you both, especially from the university community, that as we move forward on this issue, it’s only 

going to get more difficult. And as long as students believe that it’s 

okay to do it, as long as they get away with it, that’s the message 

we’re sending, and that’s the message the university administration is sending. That’s the message that society is sending. 

47

And sure, they may know the difference between right and 

wrong. But, gee, it doesn’t really matter if it’s wrong and nobody 

says anything and nobody does anything about it. 

So I would hope that we’ll continue to work to find a way to actually eliminate it, prevent the opportunity. But I think, in the meantime, there is nothing wrong with making some examples of some 

students in the process. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Hart. 

The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers, the Ranking Member of the full Committee, is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. But I’d 

like to yield to the freshest Member on our side, Mr. Weiner of New 

York. I mean, the new man on the Subcommittee. [Laughter.] 

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, sir. 

Can I ask the panel just a little bit about the technological solutions to this technological infringement? And one of the things I’d 

like to ask you, Dr. Hale, is that the concern that you expressed 

in your testimony about interdiction as a countermeasure was that 

it would have the undesirable side effect, in your words, of blocking 

all download requests, even those that do not constitute a copyright 

violation. 

But that seems to be a small price to pay. I mean, frankly, you’re 

operating in a counterterrorist kind of mode that sometimes you’ve 

got to get the person that does it. Is that the only problem, because 

it seems like interdiction seems like the most promising of the 

ways to do this? 

Mr. HALE. No, that’s not the only problem. And I will admit that 

it is a small problem. I mean, if somebody is pushing drugs and 

they’re also selling popcorn, it makes sense to shut down the entire 

store until they—until you figure it out. 

But there is a legitimate concern over unintended effects of flooding a download request queue. It could cause more serious harm 

to the system, the entire system that the would-be infringer is running, and maybe also the network——

Mr. WEINER. The would-be infringer, meaning the person requesting the download? 

Mr. HALE. No. The person that has the material to be 

downloaded. 

Mr. WEINER. Okay. I’m not persuaded that’s a huge problem. But 

what’s next? 

Mr. HALE. But also potentially the ISP that that infringer is 

using. All right? So, you know, maybe there are thousands of people using an ISP, and the infringer is one of them. If you do this 

poorly, then the potential impact could spread beyond that and affect other people. Now, that’s if you do it poorly. 

So there may be ways to do it safely, but we don’t—there hasn’t 

been a lot of research done on really measuring that, and that’s 

what needs to be done, because it is a promising approach. 

Mr. WEINER. Is there, and I’m not sure if it was Ms. Rosen and— is it mister or doctor? 

Mr. SPANIER. Either works. [Laughter.] 

Mr. WEINER. Well, I don’t want to—we’re very sensitive 

about——

48

Mr. SPANIER. It’s doctor. Yes. 

Mr. WEINER. Dr. Spanier might have mentioned it. 

Is there a way to—are there unique things about music files and 

movie files that allow you to, from the outside without actually 

going into the file, kind of scan it as it goes by, pick up identifiers, 

and say this is a de facto—I mean, close enough. You know what 

I mean? 

Frankly, a 40-page research paper, I imagine, looks differently to 

a computer scientist than a 2-hour movie. 

Mr. HALE. Yes, you can detect the signature of different types of 

media and determine, you know, without little—with little difficulty, say, well, this is an MP3. Now, you may not—it may take 

further inspection to conclude it’s a copyrighted work, but you can 

conclude it’s an MP3. 

And so, that’s certainly, you know, within the realm of possibility. 

Mr. WEINER. And is that promising? It seems to then deal with 

the concerns that some of the academics have about not infringing 

traffic that shouldn’t be infringed. 

Mr. HALE. It’s promising in the short term, but you have to understand the end-game of this entire thing is going to be that it’s 

a big game of cat-and-mouse for the P2P developers. Once this sort 

of intelligent blocking becomes prominent or prevalent, then they’ll 

begin to encrypt communications. Once they do that, it’s——

Mr. WEINER. Yes. But you know, there is a line in the movie 

‘‘The Untouchables,’’ and I’m sure someone’s studio is represented 

here, where Sean Connery says, you know, ‘‘They put one of yours 

in the hospital. You put one of theirs in the morgue. They come at 

you with a knife. You come at them with a gun.’’

I mean, on some level—I think we’re on some level pussyfooting 

around this problem a little bit because of our concern. I mean, 

there is—you know, we could fill this room with all the file-sharing. 

Maybe one little corner is what’s going on legitimately. 

And until we start to kind of do some things to make it clear to 

the person who’s doing the illegal activity that there is some cost, 

right now, we’ve really—I mean, not we—you all have, I think, 

been relatively timid in their approach. 

And I don’t agree with some of my colleagues that say, you know, 

lock up a bunch of kids who are downloading Sum 41 songs. But 

even though if you downloaded—Simon and Garfunkel fans, I think 

you might get some attention. 

But the—I mean, I think that on some level, we in Congress and 

particularly—I should only speak for myself—want to see some serious action to deal with the problem yourselves before we start 

tiptoeing up to the line and figuring out what to do. 

And if there are concerns that you have about violating the law, 

then maybe we can come and tweak things to make it possible. But 

I think, you know, we’ve been just convening a lot of roundtables 

and doing a lot of things that I think—you know, I think if some 

kid had his computer go up in flames because he’s downloading a 

song, the message would get around the Penn State campus pretty 

quick that that’s a bad idea. [Laughter.] 

49

Mr. HALE. I don’t know that—I don’t know that there’s any—I 

don’t know that there’s any flame-enabling technology out there. 

But—— [Laughter.] 

Mr. WEINER. No. But there’s a guy at Farrell’s Bar in Windsor 

Terrace who will break his kneecaps if he does. I’m not sure we 

should do that. [Laughter.] 

Mr. HALE. Let me respond. I would like to respond by saying I 

don’t think there is anything timid about what, in particular, the 

Center for Information Security is doing, the approaches we’re pursuing. 

But you have to understand the thing about encryption is that 

once those communications are encrypted, we can’t tell where 

they’re coming from. It could be somebody buying something off of 

Amazon.com. We wouldn’t know. 

So blocking becomes, at the network level, more challenging. So 

what you have to do is actually participate in the peer-to-peer network to achieve a technological solution, all right? And that’s— those are the kinds of things that we’re trying to do because we see 

the end-game is going to be encryption. There’s nothing you can do. 

Mr. WEINER. And as I yield back, I would say, you know, we 

here, on the campus here, have firewalls set up. We exchange enormous amounts of information, a lot of research. We even get things 

right sometimes, and I don’t think having those firewalls has 

brought our work here to a screeching halt. And so——

Mr. BERMAN. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. WEINER. Well, I’m out of time. 

Mr. HALE. If I may respond to that? Firewalls—in the end, firewalls won’t work. They just won’t work. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Weiner. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Berman, is recognized. You 

had a follow-up? 

Mr. BERMAN. I’ll wait. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Forbes, is 

recognized for his questions. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, want to echo 

what everybody said in giving you our appreciation for your being 

here and to tell you that we honestly do respect your opinions, and 

that’s why you’re here. 

And I only have 5 minutes. So I’m going to try to be as concise 

as I can be and ask you three questions. And if you can’t answer 

them now, if you’ll just get back with us and give us the answer 

so we can get them in the record. 

The first one is, and I know you don’t have specificity on this, 

but how much do you estimate all of this costs, with as close a parameters as you can get? So we have some feel for just the dollars 

and cents of what this piracy is costing us. 

And the second one, Ms. Rosen, is for you. Are there any universities out there that are doing everything you think they should do? 

And if so, can you give us a list of those universities and what their 

model might be? 

And then the third question that I have is, up here, we function 

kind of like a funnel, and it’s an interesting funnel because at the 

top of the funnel we talk an awful lot about the problem. And we’ll 

have hearing after hearing after hearing where everybody comes in 

50

and talks about the problem. And you’ve heard from most of the 

Members of this Subcommittee they understand there’s a problem. 

And then you move down to the next level of the funnel, and everybody talks about the parameters. We’re concerned about this, 

but we want to avoid this. 

And every great while, we will move down to the bottom of the 

funnel, where we actually do something. And at that particular 

point in time, that’s what I’m interested in your opinions on. And 

if you could, and I know you don’t have all of the information. We 

never have all of the information. But I’d like to hear from each 

one of you, if you could get back to us, what specifically would you 

like for this Subcommittee to do and, equally important, what 

would you like for us to avoid doing? 

And I commend you, unlike some of my colleagues, for not going 

out and arresting every kid, you know, that’s on campus or making 

huge examples. I know that’s a tough problem. You don’t want to 

put all of them in jail. But we really would like to hear with some 

specificity what would you like us to do and what would you like 

for us to avoid doing? 

And if you want to respond to any of those in a limited amount 

of time, that’s fine. If not, if you could just get back to us, that 

would be great. 

Ms. ROSEN. Well, as a matter of costs, I think there are multiple 

costs for the music industry and for the intellectual property industries. I think overall you’re talking about, you know, hundreds and 

hundreds of millions of dollars, jobs, lack of new artists, all sorts 

of financial consequences that filter down into making less music 

available for consumers. 

Obviously, universities have bandwidth costs and other institutional costs, and I’ll leave it to them to try and quantify those. 

In terms of what you ought to do, as has been said before, the 

law is quite good in this area, thanks to a lot of work from a lot 

of people in this room and on this dais. And so, what we are trying 

to do is get cooperation on enforcing the law and on deterrence. 

And where we can’t, find creative ways to have the law enforced 

ourselves in a civil manner. 

So, you know, what you have jurisdiction over in terms of resources is Federal jurisdiction, for Federal resources in a criminal 

area. You have—but in the civil area, I think there’s not much 

more you can do right now to make the law better. It’s pretty clear 

what’s being done is illegal. 

Mr. FORBES. So you’re comfortable with the state of the law, at 

least, right now? It’s just the enforcement part of it? 

Ms. ROSEN. I’m comfortable with the state of the law and 

discomforted about the level of enforcement all around. 

Mr. Berman had a creative idea last year, which I was supportive of finding a good way to pursue. And unfortunately, got so 

caught up in rhetoric and a disinformation campaign that it makes 

thinking about responsible solutions extremely difficult because of 

some people’s self-interest in avoiding solutions. 

So to get more creative, I think, is a big hurdle. 

Mr. SPANIER. Universities have costs on both sides of the issue. 

The additional bandwidth that we have to provide for this illegal 

activity that’s going on and to solve the problems when bad stuff 

51

comes in along with music, and our computers are invaded, and we 

have to go back and fix that. 

On the other side, on solving the problem, to deal with all the 

cases that come to our attention where students are doing something wrong, to go in and remedy those, the enforcement process 

and these technical solutions require staff time and programming. 

So we see the costs on both sides. 

But I do want to say we’re very sympathetic with the very substantial costs that apparently exist on the side of the entertainment industry. 

In terms of the end-game, what are we trying to see at the end 

of that funnel, I just want to take the opportunity to reiterate that 

we in the university community understand this problem. We are 

sympathetic with it, and we want to see a stop to it. 

This may be perceived as something adversarial. We do not, in 

any way, see illegally—the illegal pirating of copyrighted material 

by university students, in any way, to be in the best interests of 

the university. We would like to put an end to it. 

But the bottom line for us is how do we get that done with technical solutions that don’t violate some of the most basic principles 

by which universities have always operated—freedom of speech, 

freedom of expression, concerns about privacy. 

Whether there’s a technical solution out there that can deal with 

this at some gross level without us having to go into a faculty 

member’s or a student’s computer, without having to literally scan 

the content of incoming material that they think they’re transmitting privately between colleagues. 

If there is a good solution out there that preserves these principles that are so fundamental to higher education, I think we 

would want to take a very serious look at it, and many universities 

would adopt it. But there are certain lines we’re trying to be very 

careful not to cross here. We’re trying to be very sensitive to that. 

Mr. FORBES. My time is up. And thank you all for your help. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Forbes. 

We welcome another gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Goodlatte, 

and he is recognized for his questions. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend 

you for holding this hearing on a very important issue. It’s important to me not only because I have a strong interest in copyright 

protection, but also because I have more colleges and universities, 

22 of them, in my congressional district than any other district in 

the country. And so, I’m well aware of the nature of this problem. 

I do have an opening statement that I’d ask be made a part of 

the record. And I also want to join in the chorus of congratulations 

and thanks to Hilary Rosen. As a good Republican, I never thought 

that I would say about any Democrat named Hilary that ‘‘Hilary 

rocks.’’ [Laughter.] 

But that, indeed, is the case here because your work to protect 

copyright transcends your representation of the Recording Industry 

Association of America. It is something that is very, very important 

to the long history we have in this country of building respect for 

the creation and protection of intellectual property, and it transcends this issue of peer-to-peer networking as well. 

52

So we thank you for your good work, and we know that in your 

future works, you’ll continue to have some involvement with that 

in some way, I hope. 

Let me ask our college representatives something that is of interest to me. Many of the institutions in my district and many around 

the country have honor codes. And I wonder if any of you have considered whether or not unauthorized file-sharing, which is not only 

illegal and is certainly a form of theft, whether your institutions 

consider the theft of intellectual property a violation of your 

school’s moral code of conduct? 

And if so, are students informed about the seriousness of unauthorized file-sharing under such a code of conduct? 

Ms. RENDER. I’ll respond to that, and the answer is yes to that 

question relative to institutions within the University of North 

Carolina. 

Most of these processes go through the honor system and an 

honor court from the student standpoint. This type of violation is 

included in that definition, and they are very seriously revisiting, 

frankly, various aspects of the honor code, not just for this particular type of infringement, but others that are surfacing on our 

campuses. 

And I’d just like to comment that I think everyone is aware, but 

emphasize the fact of the iterative nature of this issue. The technology is evolving sometimes faster than we can respond to the 

processes within our universities. Sometimes they’re somewhat 

painful and deliberate. But there are very good reasons why we 

have shared governance and inclusion in those processes to ensure 

that the university community is very well represented. 

So I want to emphasize that the serious nature of the issue at 

hand, I think, is well recognized throughout the university community. We need to, I believe, be given some time for the joint work 

of the two communities to bear some fruit and some results and 

given the opportunity as a diverse group of campuses to react to 

that. 

I think scale is another issue that’s on both sides. We have very 

large institutions and very, very small ones. And what it will require will be different for each. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me ask you about another aspect of this. 

One of the more disturbing trends about this has been that students are beginning to develop internal local area networks within 

universities for file-swapping that does not reach beyond the university’s network. And these types of networks do not deplete the 

university’s bandwidth. So that problem that has gotten the attention of some universities is not here and—because they’re not using 

the Internet as a viaduct. 

Instead, files are swapped from one computer in the university’s 

network to others within the same network. I believe these local 

network file-swappings are also illegal, just as illegal as they may 

be trading over the Internet. And I wonder if any of our university 

representatives have any thoughts on that issue and whether 

you’ve attempted to address that issue in your—in your work? 

Mr. HALE. I guess I would like to say that, yes, that’s a trend 

that we’ve seen, and it’s a growing trend and a disturbing one. And 

it’s not necessarily the case that it wouldn’t—it would not impact 

53

network performance in a university network. It depends upon the 

architecture of that university’s network. 

There are—there are things that can be done, and the same 

types of countermeasures can work. But it’s a problem that’s a little more difficult to detect and deal with. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. And Ms. Rosen, if I might ask, in 

relation to the educational efforts that your industry is undertaking, is there any thought to a massive public relations-type of 

campaign, coupled—I noted recently that America Online, 

TimeWarner have just launched a new fee service. A number of 

other companies have that as well. And that is excellent. 

But in order to beat free, there seems to me to be a very strong 

need for some kind of a general public relations campaign about 

the effect of peer-to-peer file-swapping on the possible—the principle of file-swapping and the principle of copyright protection. 

And I’m just wondering what your industry is doing and what 

the copyright community at large is doing to have some kind of a 

massive public relations campaign, to spend tens of millions of dollars in a concentrated effort over a few months’ period of time to 

try to change public attitudes about this? 

Ms. ROSEN. You will see tens of millions of dollars spent over the 

next several months promoting the legitimate services so that consumers will understand that——

Mr. GOODLATTE. But what about the other side of it? That there 

is——

Ms. ROSEN. On the other side, there has been a public relations 

campaign which we actually unveiled last fall at this Committee, 

which received, you know, significant air time on MTV and VH1 

and BET, and Clear Channel put it on multiple radio stations 

around the country. 

And we found that that education has had an impact, but there 

is only so much that education is going to do. There’s going to have 

to be some broader sense, we think, of consequences or significant 

impact. But I think we’ll continue that campaign and, importantly, 

the legitimate services will go out there. 

And I have to say just on the state of the law for 1 second—and 

this is relevant because it follows up on what Mr. Forbes said. If 

we lose this pending Verizon case, which I don’t think we will—and 

most of you know about it—I may come back and say the law isn’t 

correct. [Laughter.] 

So I have to reserve my option to do that. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I might submit one 

more question for the record? 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. It’s directed to Professor Hale, and if he could 

submit it in writing, he could perhaps respond in writing. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Goodlatte follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BOB GOODLATTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important oversight hearing on peerto-peer piracy on our universities’ campuses. 

Article I Section 8 of our Constitution lays the framework for our nation’s copyright and patent laws. It grants Congress the power to award inventors and creVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
54

ators, for limited amounts of time, exclusive rights to their inventions and works. 

The founding fathers realized that this type of incentive was crucial to ensure that 

America would become the world’s leader in innovation and creativity. This truth 

is still applicable today. As we continue our journey into the digital age, we must 

be sure to continue to reward our innovators with the exclusive rights to their works 

for limited periods of time. This incentive is still necessary to maintain America’s 

position as the world leader in innovation. 

However, the proliferation of copyright piracy in America is growing and is threatening to undermine the very copyright protections our founding fathers envisioned. 

Particularly disturbing is the growth of piracy on America’s university campuses. A 

recent CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found that 39% of college students with Internet access admitted to having downloaded music that they did not pay for. A recent 

study of the FASTTRACK P2P system showed that 16% of the files available at any 

given moment on the FASTTRACK network were located at IP addresses managed 

by U.S. educational institutions. Furthermore, 26% of the supernodes on the 

FASTTRACK network were being run from addresses assigned to universities. 

In addition, last year a medium-sized U.S. state university used a prototype network traffic-monitoring tool to provide a snapshot of network usage on its campus. 

It monitored the activity of 54 users of only one P2P network, the Gnutella network, 

during the university’s summer break. The results of the research showed that 89% 

of the files transferred to and from the university network were infringing. Furthermore, those 54 monitored users uploaded 4,614 files. In addition, more than 75% 

of the transferred data was from university users to individuals located outside of 

the university network, which shows that there is a growing trend toward outside 

pirates using university resources to download files. 

These statistics are nothing short of staggering and show that the problem of piracy on America’s university campuses cannot be ignored. Universities should be 

concerned about copyright piracy for many reasons. I would like to highlight two 

of these reasons. 

First of all, file sharing is theft. When a student downloads a song without paying 

for the song, that student is stealing. One of the greatest characteristics of our nation’s universities is their commitment to honesty and honorable behavior. Most universities demand that students follow strict honor codes that prohibit such activities 

as lying, cheating and stealing. However, when a university adopts a passive stance 

on copyright piracy, it sends a mixed message that blurs the moral imperatives it 

seeks to foster through its honor code. 

Secondly, file sharing poses serious security threats to universities’ network resources. The simple fact is that P2P networks connect universities’ computers to 

networks that may never have been checked for viruses, worms or other destructive 

computer codes. This leaves universities wide open to attack. Also, P2P developers 

often create applications within their software that records users’ web browsing behaviors. P2P developers then sell this information to make additional profits. In addition to potential privacy concerns, these tracking applications can be attractive 

targets for hackers and trespassers looking for weaknesses in universities’ networks. 

Illegal file swapping is a serious problem for universities. Clearly, industry leaders and university officials must coordinate their efforts to eliminate this illegal activity. I am encouraged by the cooperation exhibited by the parties here today and 

believe that their efforts to work together to solve these problems are commendable. 

Through education and the development of best practices and competitive technologies, content providers and educational institutions can show the world that private parties can work together to solve these complex piracy issues without heavyhanded government regulation. 

I look forward to hearing from the expert witnesses today regarding the progress 

the groups are making. I also look forward to receiving the forthcoming reports from 

the Joint Committee in a timely fashion, and I expect to see documented progress 

resulting from this cooperation. 

Thank you for taking the time to come and talk about your efforts to end copyright piracy on America’s university campuses.

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. And that’s a good reminder. Any Member 

is welcome, if it’s all right with the witnesses, to submit questions. 

Now, before we adjourn, Mr. Berman has a follow-up question. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, Mr. Chairman, would you forget the Ranking 

Member or what? 

55

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Conyers, you yielded your time to Mr. Weiner. 

I’ll be happy to recognize Mr. Weiner for his time, and he can yield 

it back to you, if you’d like. 

Mr. CONYERS. Oh. So that’s the kind of Committee we’re going 

to have—— [Laughter.] 

Mr. SMITH. According to the rules. 

Mr. CONYERS [continuing]. In the 108th. 

Mr. SMITH. In any case, the gentleman from Michigan is recognized if he has some questions. 

Mr. CONYERS. Oh, that’s very nice of you. Ladies and gentlemen, 

and Members of the Committee, this is a tough problem. And without a solution, we begin to get into whether people from Farrell’s 

Bar, Mr. Weiner, should be visiting the malefactors or whether the 

Berman bounty-hunter’s notion, which I was sorry to hear Hilary 

raised, you’re going to get some—we’re going to take care of this 

problem in a way you’re all going to be very unhappy with. 

So I have a solution. Let us all gather around the table and with 

the electronics industry and with the content industry, let’s begin 

to fashion a solution that we can all live with. Or you’ll probably 

all get a solution that you’ll all be very unhappy with. 

Can we agree on that? Not yet. 

Mr. SPANIER. I think that summarizes quite well why this Committee exists that Cary Sherman and I are co-chairing to try to 

come up with solutions that we jointly prefer as opposed to something that is imposed on us that may not feel as comfortable. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, Chairman Sensenbrenner, Ranking Member 

Berman, and the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Boucher, Mr. Cannon of Utah, a number of us have been meeting on this very same 

subject. Can we get this behind us in a way that before it gets so 

big, you’re going to get some draconian kinds of results coming out 

of here? 

Now, I don’t want to remind anybody about this because somebody may rush to put in a bill. But we did have mandatory minimums on this violation for about 5 years. Mandatory. Criminal. We 

took it off. 

But you know, the general impression that may be happening as 

a result of this hearing from our distinguished educators is that 

this is just another visit to Washington, and maybe nothing much 

is going to happen. 

Please, I can assure you that that would—you’d be leaving Judiciary Committee with the wrong impression. Because there are 

people ready to take action, and it will probably go over the line 

in terms of privacy concerns and the kind of things that we want. 

Now, true, it’s a cultural problem. If how many young people say 

this is a crime, a Federal crime which you could go to the slammer 

for. And they’d say, please, everybody is doing it, including a lot 

of their parents, by the way, since we’re in the blame thing on kids 

today. There are a lot of adults doing this same thing. So we have 

to see from the educational community a ratcheting up of concern 

about this. 

No, you don’t have to start throwing kids out of school. The 

Naval Academy was doing it for a while for these same kinds of 

infractions that bring us here today. But we do have to make it 

clear that there is a note of urgent seriousness that has not really 

56

manifested itself to the rest of us looking in on what campuses are 

doing. 

So I hope we can all work together and be friends, and I would 

like anybody that wants to give me any friendly advice on the 

panel to please do so. 

Ms. ROSEN. Keep at it, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Well, that’s easy for you to say. [Laughter.] 

We work together so much. But thank you all very much. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. The gentleman from California, Mr. Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. Just a couple of observations. One is to sort of reaffirm, as if it were necessary, what Mr. Conyers has said. It is great 

you’re working closely with some of the copyright industries to try 

and find ways to deal with this problem, but don’t let the existence 

of a process be the answer. The process has to get into concrete 

steps and deal with the problem, and—and it’s important to do it 

sooner rather than later. 

The second observation is to Dr. Hale’s comment about 

encryption. The fact is, yes, encryption can get around the different 

kinds of blocking efforts. But the encryption also makes the system 

less usable, less—more difficult for potential downloaders to know 

what they’re downloading. It makes it more complicated. 

Things which create—which make things more difficult provide 

a useful service because they block the frequency and the amount 

of the infringing activity. And so, in and of itself, the fact that 

there are countermeasures that can be taken, but which make it 

more difficult to utilize the peer-to-peer system are not necessarily 

such a bad consequence. 

Thirdly, I just want to make that point on the fair use to Dr. 

Spanier. You can—if your university class in music wants you to 

have the fair use advantage of comparing different kinds of music 

and songs, there are so many different ways of setting up a network for that class, for that school, with respect to these items 

where you can use a network, but it’s not a publicly accessible network that anybody with that software in their computer anywhere 

in the world can get a hold of. 

Because putting it onto that kind of a network that any computer 

that had the software can get a hold of it is not a fair use. And 

so, I don’t think that notion of the theoretical fair use should block 

things from happening. There are so many alternatives. 

And finally, to Ms. Render, I’d just ask you to revisit the University of North Carolina’s network acceptable use policy. Nowhere in 

that policy, you talk about bandwidth problems and are very specific about certain things you don’t want to go on in that network, 

but you never talk about copyright infringement and that those 

trades are copyright infringement. 

And I’d suggest getting the specificity of that notion into the—

into the policy and into the primer that all students who are a part 

of your network have to get would be useful and specific kind of 

a statement by the university that that’s wrong and should be related directly to infringement. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. It’s been a good hearing. 

57

Mr. SMITH. Let me make an observation as well, and that is 

today, as a result of the testimony that we’ve heard, I’ve come to 

kind of a surprising conclusion. And that is that what’s been done 

so far in the way of education and enforcement—and I emphasize 

so far—really hasn’t worked that well. 

There hasn’t been an appreciable reduction in piracy, and certainly nothing quantifiable that we can point to. And that may well 

mean that additional steps need to be taken in a number of areas. 

And so, at least that’s one of the conclusions that I’ve come to as 

a result of your very, very interesting and worthwhile testimony. 

So we thank all of the witnesses for being here today. I thank 

the Members for their presence as well, and we stand adjourned. 

Thank you. 

[The speech of Mr. Valenti follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JACK VALENTI

‘‘. . . Man is the only animal

who both laughs and weeps,

because Man is the only animal

who understands the difference

between the way things are

and the way they ought to be’’

Some comments on

the Moral Imperative

offered by

JACK VALENTI, President and CEO

Motion Picture Association of America 

at 

Duke University

Durham, North Carolina

February 24, 2003

No free, democratic nation can lay claim to greatness unless it has constructed 

a platform from which springs a moral compact that guides the daily conduct of the 

society and inspires the society to believe in civic trust. That ‘‘moral imperative’’

connects to every family, to every business, every university, every profession and 

to government as well. It is defined by what William Faulkner called ‘‘the old verities,’’ the words that define what this free and loving land is all about. Words like 

duty, service, honor, integrity, pity, pride, compassion, sacrifice. 

If you treat these words casually, if you find them un-cool, if you regard them as 

mere playthings which only the rabble and the rubes, the unlearned and the unsophisticated, observe and honor, then we will all bear witness to the slow undoing 

of the great secret of America. 

Newspapers have been full of sordid stories of unbounded avarice by some corporate executives, whose acts soiled the moral compact. But their dishonesty did not 

indict the free market system. The system works. What was so contemptibly wrong 

was the breakage of civic trust by some within the system who knew they were 

cheating and stealing from employees and stockholder, but because it was easy to 

do, because they had the power to do it, they did it. 

It was a cynical, coarse defiance of the moral imperative. But the exposure of this 

fiscal perfidy made most of us think hard and long about the lack of any moral reference within those corporate malefactors. 

Most Americans with very little don’t resent those who have a lot more. Most 

Americans believe if they work hard, educate themselves and play by the rules, they 

will by their own effort rise to higher places and have more tomorrow than they 

have today. That is the sanity and the beauty of the American dream. 

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But the belief by the average citizen in the American moral compact is demolished 

by the brute reality that some who have more got theirs through treachery and 

trickery, which so cruelly mocked all those ‘‘fools’’ who trusted them. 

There is no larger objective in this country than the reassembling of civic trust, 

the reaffirmation of honorable conduct by the most powerful among us; in short, 

holding fast to the sustenance of civic trust. How then does the university insert 

within the young ‘‘the old verities’’ so that students not only understand and believe 

in the compact but also live it in their daily moral grind? That’s the grand question 

as we enter the new digital world. It’s a question that every guardian of the university’s purpose must answer. 

Someone once said that all movement is not necessarily forward nor is all change 

necessarily progress. So it is that the digital world is not necessarily a better world, 

but it is surely a different one. The divide between the digital world and the analog 

world is a vast chasm. To put it another way, in Mark Twain’s words, the difference 

between digital and analog is the difference ‘‘between lightning and the lightning 

bug.’’ The digital Internet has the potential to become the greatest communications 

delivery system ever known on this planet. It has the promise of allowing people 

to find new ways to do new things, and do them with dazzling speed. 

The nation’s universities, including Duke, are equipped with large pipe, high velocity broadband state-of-the-art computer networks. None better, none faster. They 

produce vast benefits to the university, allowing instant delivery of information and 

knowledge for professors and research experts within the academy. They are also 

accessible to students who are privy to not only this avalanche of data—but also 

to movies. This is an Open Sesame opportunity for some students to take creative 

property that does not belong to them with effortless ease and speed. And because 

they have the power to do it, many, but not all of them, do it. 

That is why today I choose to chat with you about the interlacing of the moral 

compact, digital technology—and American movies—and to introduce you to a view 

of the collision of values brought on by the migratory magic of digital ones and 

zeros. 

One value says, ‘‘Digital technology gives me power to roam the Internet, therefore whatever is available, I can take, no matter who owns it.’’ The other value says, 

‘‘The fact that digital technology gives me power to use, doesn’t make it right for 

me to use it wrongly.’’ That is where the collision of values takes place. 

So it is we confront a contradiction that puts to hazard the moral compact that 

guides the nation. How does the society deal with it? Importantly, how does the university react to this challenge to civic trust flung down by the best and the brightest? 

Viant, a Boston-based research film, estimates that between 400,000 to 600,000 

movies are being illegally downloaded EVERY DAY! Sad to report, a large chunk 

of that Internet abuse occurs on college campuses by students who are hourly visitors to the digital realms of KaaZa, Morpheus, Grockster, Gnutella, etc, so-called 

‘‘file-swapping’’ sites and fill their hard drives with new movies, free of charge. 

But there is a larger, darker issue here. Students would never enter a Blockbuster 

store and with furtive glance stuff a DVD inside their jacket and walk out without 

paying. They know that’s shoplifting, they know that’s stealing. They know they can 

find themselves in big-ass trouble if they’re caught. That’s why they don’t do it. 

Then why would those same young leaders-to-be walk off the Internet with a movie 

inside their digital jacket? Why? Is it because digital shoplifting is at this moment 

a ‘‘no risk’’ activity? If that is so, why is it so? Is it because Ambrose Bierce’s definition of Conscience as ‘‘Something you refer to when you are about to get caught’’

is an unwanted truth? Are the words ‘‘ethics’’—‘‘morality’’—‘‘principle’’—alien words, 

exiled from the student lexicon? It’s a sizeable question. 

There are some critics who say, ‘‘Come on, movie industry, get with it. Stop your 

whining and get a new business model.’’

Fine, except no business model ever struck off by the hand and brain of Man can 

compete with ‘‘Free.’’ And if critics don’t understand that, it’s because they just love 

the status quo. When a new multi-million dollar film, just released, is suddenly on 

the Net being abducted by millions of visitors to file-swapping sites, then that, dear 

friends, is ‘‘the status quo.’’ Not a congenial status. Not a pleasant quo. 

About two years ago, when Napster was in full blossom, I spoke to some 200 students, the finest of the breed, at one of the most prestigious universities in the land. 

My subject was ‘‘The Changing American Presidency.’’ In my opening remarks, I 

said, ‘‘Before we talk about the White House, I have a question. Music is not my 

turf. Movies are. But I wonder how many of you have bought a CD in the last several months?’’ Some three or four hands were upraised. ‘‘Alright, now many of you 

have been on Napster the last several months?’’ Every hand shot up. 

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I fixed my gaze on a young man who I was told was going to graduate near the 

top of his class. ‘‘You are,’’ I said, ‘‘about to graduate from one of the best schools 

in the world. You are now an educated, civilized human being, those best fitted to 

meet life’s changes and challenges with versatility and grace. Now, tell me, how do 

you square that with the fact you’re stealing?’’

He was crestfallen at first. Then his face brightened and he said, ‘‘Well, maybe 

it is a kind of stealing, but everyone else is doing it and besides music costs too 

much.’’ I smiled as I thought to myself, ‘‘for this version of a moral value, parents 

are paying a small fortune in tuition.’’

Making choices is a daily experience for Americans. Making the right choice 

emerges from a process that is rooted in instinct and intuition which leap from 

unshakable values. When you come to a fork in the road, which way do you go? If 

choices chosen by young people early in their learning environment are infected 

with a moral decay, how then can they ever develop the judgment to take the right 

fork in the road? How will you, when many of you are in leadership roles in the 

future, deal with younger employees who have learned as students that if you have 

the power to take what doesn’t belong to them, you do it? As the leader of the enterprise, how will you come to grips with that? You’ll be face-to-face with the breakage 

of the moral compact and, guess what; it’s on your dime. 

That’s why the university cannot stand aloof from this progression since administrators and professors set the final design before its graduates, in the words of that 

old cliche—go on to ‘‘face life.’’ I am pleased to report the movie industry is now 

meeting with a committee representing the nation’s colleges and universities. The 

objective of these meetings is to urge the construction of a Code of Conduct for students when they use the university broadband system, a Code of Conduct solely 

within the confines and the authority of the university. Those discussions are going 

well. The university representatives have a clear vision of this issue. Many of them 

have developed or in the process of creating a Code of Conduct. 

While digital technology is a hyper-modern phenomenon, its molecular connection 

to the moral rostrum has an ancient ancestry. Many years ago, the British philosopher, William Hazlitt, wrote: ‘‘Man is the only animal who both laughs and weeps 

for he is the only animal who understands the difference between the way things 

are and the way they ought to be.’’

The digital world has the capacity to unlock knowledge hidden behind doors previously only partially open, and mostly closed to all but a few. What is yet to be 

put in place is a clear understanding of how to conduct yourself when you have digital power available to you that you will not use because it causes injury to others. 

William Hazlitt summed up that choice for us better than anyone else.

[The Electronic Privacy Information Center letter follows:]

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[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN CONYERS, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

One middle-ground approach to stopping piracy seems to be working: for the industries to negotiate privately and then for the government to mandate the agreement so that it can be enforced. This already has happened with the broadcast flag 

issue, which revolved around how to make sure that DVD players and computers 

would recognize and obey the rights management on broadcast digital TV signals. 

The parties agreed on how to approach this and the FCC is working on a rule to 

mandate the agreement. 

These negotiations must continue and resolve these peer-to-peer issues. Copyright 

piracy is one of the most serious economic problems facing this Committee. As the 

whole world knows by now, we have absolutely rampant piracy over the Internet. 

Consumers have grown accustomed to free music on the Web; movies and video 

games are not far behind. 

In the meantime, I believe that one potential solution is for an institution not to 

monitor student activity on the Internet, but to warn students when a third-party, 

typically the recording industry, notifies the university of an alleged transgression. 

The student is then asked to remove the offending conduct and to stop the file-sharing. 

I think that it is critical that higher education institutions set forth policies that 

foster open-mindedness and critical inquiry. I also believe that network monitoring 

has the potential to stifle the creativity and academic freedom among students that 

must thrive in educational settings. 

There is no doubt in my mind we are at a crossroads in the content business. The 

decisions we make this year in Congress, the state legislatures, and the courts will 

have an impact on the future of the content industry, and whether we will even 

have a viable content industry in the future. 

So it is altogether fitting that we begin the Subcommittee’s agenda with a hearing 

concerning peer-to-peer networks in college communities. File sharing among students can provide many beneficial uses in education, research, and professional development. Unfortunately, many students on university campuses have exploited 

the intended use of the peer-to-peer network, engaging in the practice of trafficking 

music, movies, software, video games, and other copyrighted material without permission. Aside from raising issues of copyright infringement, this illegal use of the 

peer-to-peer network can lead to invasions of student privacy, viruses, and other potential security threats to the university’s network. 

Last year, consumers swapped over 5 billion music files over peer-to-peer networks. An astonishing 58 percent of the American population between the ages of 

12–21 have downloaded MP3s over the Internet in the past two years. That 

amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars that are being stolen from creators. Clearly this degradation and exploitation of what should be a beneficial system will continue to have a deteriorating effect on our economy, not to mention our livelihoods 

as consumers in the content industry, if it is allowed to continue. 

The content industry is stepping up its battle against digital copyright piracy on 

college campuses, encouraging higher education leaders to monitor their students 

and impose restrictions on violators. Those who oppose network monitoring argue 

that, aside from raising privacy concerns, such monitoring can have a chilling effect 

on the use of the peer-to-peer technology that can otherwise have valuable academic 

rewards. The end result, they claim, would amount to an overall chilling effect on 

the marketplace of ideas. 

Monitoring can have the effect of turning university officials into spies for the content industry, thus creating an atmosphere in which the First Amendment and priVerDate Jan 17 2002 09:12 Apr 04, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 G:\WORK\COURTS\022603\85286.000 HJUD1 PsN: 85286
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vacy rights of students are significantly devalued. Piracy, however, has proven to 

be a lethal threat to the content and technology industries and universities must 

take care to address these legitimate concerns that continue to plague the copyright 

industry.

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