The federal court in St. Louis issued subpoenas last Thursday,
with charges made against Charter Communications.
Charter supplies high-speed Internet access by way of its cable
system, and it is the nation’s third- largest, cable television
company. Charter customer services allow its users to access KaZaa,
one of many file-sharing programs that offers free sharing of
copyrighted music.
Within the past few weeks, crackdown on music downloading has
supposedly reached the Saint Louis University campus. Students have
noticed slower downloading times, whether on KaZaa or from other
Web sites.
Barb Coleman, Manager of Training and Communication for
Information Technology Services said that the apparent decline in
bandwidth corresponds with when Internet users were trying to
download music from file-sharing programs such as KaZaa.
“If downloaded recently, students shouldn’t see a change [in
bandwidth]; prior to that, they may have seen slowing down of
downloading because we were trying to keep network space free so
students could use the Internet for homework,” Coleman said. She
also remarked that bandwidth on SLU networks has, in fact, tripled
since last year.
This means that more information can be passed over the Internet
as the megabytes have increased from 20 to 60; 50 percent of this
information is available to students in residence halls.
Concerning the Recording Industry Association of America’s
recent subpoena of Charter/Kazaa users, Coleman explained that ITS
is not monitoring what students download.
However, the RIAA is monitoring such downloads, and if any
member of the SLU community is caught violating RIAA regulations,
then ITS is forced to comply with the RIAA’s courses of action.
Like many things at SLU, ITS is running on an honor system in
hopes that students will not violate the law and commit copyright
infringement. ITS is trying to raise “social consciousness” and let
students determine what is right and wrong.
However, this campaign is not affecting the bandwidth on SLU’s
networks.
Nationally, the RIAA is using subpoenas to gain information
about potential thieves of copyrighted music. The RIAA is seeking
names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of KaZaa
users.
“We will be filing subpoenas to gather information against
individuals engaged in illegal activities on peer-to-peer networks,
as well as lawsuits against them, on a regular basis going
forward,” said Amanda Collins, spokeswoman for the Washington-based
RIAA.
The RIAA has been targeting college campuses around the country,
and the investigations are getting closer to the SLU campus.
St. Louis residents are being investigated for downloading
copyrighted music. This week, subpoenas were issued to 109 Charter
customers; many are likely to be residents of the St. Louis area.
Lawsuits have been filed against 261 people nationwide for
illegally downloading music.
Where ITS is not supervising what information is passing over
SLU’s network, the RIAA is monitoring downloads.
