MIT officials halt new file-sharing program

Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Josh Mandel and Keith Winstein thought they could develop technology to beat copyright laws at their own game.

It almost worked in Cambridge -- but could the kinks be ironed out and ultimately be imported to Penn?

Mandel and Winstein sought to replace the illegal practice of students downloading files from other users' computers with a system using their university's analog cable network. Students would be allowed to download songs over the analog cable from a central library, which only has licensed music.

Since the school paid for the licensing fees in the same way radio stations do, students would be able to listen for free, according to The New York Times.

"The realization that the students at MIT made was that there were copy protections for digital content that didn't apply to analog content," Penn Computer Science Professor Jonathan Smith said.

The process can best be understood through a metaphor, Smith said. The new system is akin to playing a CD on an audio player, recording the sound waves on an old-fashioned cassette recorder, and then using the analog tape to listen to the music. Since copyright laws are different for digital and analog media, the system could work.

At least that was the theory. Vivendi Universal, a music company whose product was being licensed by the school, claimed that they had not been properly compensated. MIT promptly shut down the system last Friday, until the legal disputes are resolved.

When asked if Penn's Computer Science Department would support similar efforts here, Smith said he did not know.

"We would probably wait and see how things panned out. For all I know, kids are already doing it."

Technical issues aside, some experts point to the technology's confusing legal status.

"It is a tricky legal question," Penn Law Professor R. Polk Wagner wrote in an e-mail. "There are a number of interesting legal questions raised by this system, and the technological investment seems rather large for an uncertain outcome."

Some information technology professionals also share the lawyers' reservations.

"We were looking at that with great interest last week," said Christopher Cook, director of Penn Video Network.

Although the Penn network uses some digital technology to receive signals, "it's basically an analog distribution system," he said.

MIT's "cable system is much more digitally enhanced than ours is," said Mayumi Hirtzel, the video services coordinator for the Penn Video Network.

She added that she did not know if Penn's cable infrastructure was similar enough to MIT's for their system to work here.

"It would probably take some type of adjustment to the system as it currently exists," she said.

While professionals are stunned by the concept, many students remain unaware of the developments.

"I have not heard about it," College freshman Teresa Leyden said.

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