Penn wants you to practice safe downloading

At the end of September, 114 Penn students had received pre-litigation letters from the Recording Industry Association of America asking them to pay a fine of about $3,000 or face a potential lawsuit.

But the University is trying to prevent more students from that fate with recent efforts aimed at curbing illegal downloading on campus.

The new "Know the Facts" campaign - which bears striking resemblance to a sex-ed campaign - draws attention to the issues of illegal downloading with yellow signs posted around campus that ask questions like, "Is your computer hooking up with unsafe files?" or "Think you're practicing safe downloading? Think again!"

The posters encourage students to educate themselves by visiting the Web site, www.upenn.edu/knowthefacts, which provides answers to FAQs and warnings to students.

The campaign kicked off over Parents Weekend in hope that drawing parents' attention to the problem would affect their children.

Associative Provost Andrew Binns said a big part of the plan "is to educate [students and] try to make sure that everyone sees what is going on."

He added that students should be aware that the University cannot protect students from receiving pre-litigation letters.

The University's efforts are part of a larger, federally mandated program to educate students about illegal downloading.

Earlier this year, Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, H.R. 4137, which requires colleges to make an annual disclosure that "explicitly informs students that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material . may subject the students to civil and criminal liabilities."

It also states that institutions are required to have "developed plans to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material."

The law also recommends, but does not require, that schools consider ways to offer alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer file sharing. Penn had already offered students the option to use Ruckus, a free online music-downloading program.

Binns stressed that students need to know that even if they download illegally at home, they should not do so on campus because groups such as the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America are targeting universities as a way to find illegal downloaders.

It is easier to target illegal downloading that occurs on a campus network like Penn's because logging onto the network automatically reveals a student's PennKey. The RIAA can see which computers, identified by their IP addresses, violated copyright laws and can ask the University to identify and forward pre-litigation letters to those students.

If students do not respond in a time frame set forth by the RIAA, it can subpoena Penn for the student's information.

The University has no interaction with students beyond forwarding the letters. Previously, however, the Office of Student Conduct would meet with a student the second time they received a complaint about copyright infringement and require them to pay a fine of $50.

Some students say the campaign has convinced them to stop illegal downloading.

"I'm still going to download, just not at Penn . because of the repercussions," said Wharton sophomore Chiranjeev Singh.

But some - like College sophomore Adam Feldman - either have not been affected or have not noticed the campaign at all.

When asked whether they had noticed the campaign, both Wharton senior Maria Lati and Wharton sophomore Cameron Rouzer said they had not noticed the signs at all.

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