Students Undaunted by New Round of File-Sharing Lawsuits

A second round of lawsuits against anonymous file-sharers in college networks has not yet sent shockwaves across the residence halls, students say.

Back at the dormitories, old episodes of "The O.C." and copies of Outkast's "Hey Ya" were still zipping through peer-to-peer networks.

"As long as there will be free songs and videos on the Internet, people will find ways to share them," said freshman Laura Davy. "It's just too hard to stop them."

Several students were unaware of last week's announcement that the Recording Industry Association of America is filing 532 lawsuits against song-swappers nationwide, including UC Berkeley students who have yet to be named.

"This will probably scare students for a little bit and then they'll just start up again," said UC Berkeley freshman Megan DuBois.

Still others were unclear about what constitutes unlawful distribution of music.

"I'm under the impression that if you download music and keep it for personal use, it's OK," said UC Berkeley freshman Ryan Panchadsaram, who turns to Apple's iTunes for music.

Others who have heard of the lawsuits have since turned off sharing abilities in large peer-to-peer services.

"On big networks like Kazaa, I block people from downloading my files, but they can't really find you out through direct connection," said UC Berkeley freshman Blake Lee.

Indeed, students who complained of garbled music on Kazaa are turning to a direct connection client called DC++, said Kevin Tong, who has since stopped using Kazaa.

Residential Computing does not actively scout the servers for students who share music.

But if students are caught, the university will receive a "take down" notice from an agency representing the copyright holder.

Students then receive an e-mail warning asking them to confirm they have removed the copyrighted material.

Tong was once warned by Residential Computing after downloading a copy of "American Wedding" from a Web site and was asked to quickly delete the file.

Repeated violations are reported to the resident director.

"The thing is we're teenagers," Davy said. "This is the age of information and it's hard not to share it."

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