IU encounters file sharing

Whether a person's in the mood for Britney Spear's "Toxic" or in search of a classic Ted Nugent power ballad, one standard method of satiating the hungers of college music lovers is through MP3 file sharing.\nThe movie industry has also fallen victim to pirating, but has not pursued litigation against college students as aggressively as the music industry has.\nDespite recent crackdowns on filesharers of all walks of life from the recording industry, a survey of college technology officers said most students' downloading habits have not changed in the last year. The Chronicle of Higher Education's informal survey directly contrasts findings by the Pew Internet & American Life Project survey that said file sharing among college students has dropped substantially since the record industry's lawsuits began.\nAccording to Pew's January report, 24 percent of students admitted to downloading music in the fall as opposed to the 56 percent in the previous year. The Chronicle's report, however, found that only a few universities have seen significant drops in music trading on campus networks. \nAccording to The Chronicle's survey, Penn State University has seen the biggest drop in file sharing due to PSU's offer of Napster 2.0, a subscription based program offering song downloads legally. Because of the university's offering, Penn State has become an experiment of sorts for other universities who are seeking a solution to the pirating problem. \nOther legal music downloading venues such as iTunes have become a relatively popular alternative to downloading pirated files, but some students are either unwilling to pay the cost or do not know enough about the service. \n"I don't do that much downloading in the first place so I'm just going to download a couple of songs here and there," senior Tony Wellman said. "I don't do it that often, so I'm not that familiar with i-Tunes and how that works." \nSenior Adam Ledyard said he began file sharing at an early age and hasn't stopped since the lawsuits began. \n"File sharing is illegal, and if you get caught you should be punished, but I'll do it anyway," Ledyard said. "I've been pirating software since middle school, and it really doesn't scare me unless it gets really strict where everyone gets punished for it, then and only then would I completely stop." \nLedyard is not alone in his defiance against attempts to stave off the amount of illegal downloading on the Internet. Senior Nate Scholten said he has downloaded fewer songs off the Internet, but attributes his recent lack of downloading to a slower off-campus Internet connection rather than the recording industry's crackdown.\n"Yeah, I definitely downloaded fewer songs since I moved off-campus," Scholten said. "However, if I was still in the dorms, I probably would have found a different way because there's almost always a loophole or a different way to get files off of the Internet."\nWhile some students stand in defiance of both the recording industry and the University, some are sympathetic to the University's stance.\n"As a student I'd be frustrated, but as a University, that's what they've got to do," Wellman said. "I basically agree both ways. I think they should put a limit on (songs) for the extent of a few years and then after that, it should be free reign."\nWhile most college students realize file sharing is illegal, they remain unhindered in their search for free tunes, movies and software. Scholten said he would only stop file sharing if he was punished personally. \n"It would've stopped me if they punished me (for file sharing)," Scholten said. "If I was sent a warning or something from the University, I would have stopped downloading files. File sharing's mainly something you do until you get caught."\n-- Contact senior writer Dan Patrick at djpatric@indiana.edu.