A group of representatives from colleges and entertainment companies is trying to help colleges find ways to manage the problem of illegal file-sharing by compiling a list of companies that could provide campuses with online music and video services, legally and at a reasonable price.
The technology task force of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities issued a “request for information” on the topic late last month, under the aegis of Educause, the higher-education technology consortium. The group has asked companies to respond by July 14.
Such requests for information often precede a request for bids, but neither Educause nor the task force has plans to award a broad contract for such services. However, individual colleges could use the information compiled by the task force to solicit bids.
The joint committee -- whose members include presidents and provosts from Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Rochester, and Yale University -- organized in December 2002, with Educause as its sponsor.
The technology group is one of three task forces that the joint committee has formed to try to solve the problem of students’ using KaZaA and other file-sharing technologies to avoid paying for music and other copyrighted works.
“There are a lot of campuses that know they need to do some more things related to this,” says Mark S. Bruhn, chief information-technology security and policy officer at Indiana University at Bloomington who is a member of the committee’s technology task force. “Certainly they’re being encouraged to do more things by the government and by the entertainment industry. They just need to know what options there are.”
The other two task forces are looking into educational and legislative approaches to ending illegal file-sharing. The recording industry has recently threatened to solve the problem for them by filing hundreds of lawsuits against copyright violators.
The technology task force is seeking information about digital movie and music services that would be available by September 1, but it is willing to review information about services that companies may be planning to offer between then and July 1, 2004.
“It’s early in the evolution of these services, so we’re looking for a good first step that could be improved later,” says Mark A. Luker, a vice president of Educause.
The companies are being asked to include the type of content -- music, videos, and games, for example -- and number of titles they offer, as well as the names of content owners from whom the companies have secured licensing agreements.
The same task force has been evaluating responses it received last month from a related but separate request for information about specific blocking or filtering technologies that may help colleges reduce illegal file-sharing.
Most analysts familiar with the problem of illegal file-sharing on college campuses agree that providing students a legitimate source on online music and movies for downloading at a reasonable price will be ineffective unless colleges also block students’ access to free but illegally shared music, movies, and other entertainment.
Before colleges say to students, “We’re going to give you authorized content, you have to block all of that unauthorized content,” says Michael Hoch, a research director at the Aberdeen Group, a business-technology research company, in Boston. The list of companies that make products that block file-sharing or otherwise control the excessive use of file-sharing is fairly extensive, he says, and includes companies like Packeteer and Allot Communications.
The list of companies from which colleges could buy online content is more limited. “The business relationships are very difficult to put in place,” Mr. Hoch says, “and security is one of the main concerns.”
Apple Computer, Pressplay, RealNetworks, and MusicNet, for example, offer services for legally downloading music. But some smaller companies have had a difficult time persuading the major recording companies and entertainment studios to license their copyrighted works for subscribers to download, Mr. Hoch says.
Apple Computer, with its iTunes Music Store, is among the few that have been successful so far, he says. Apple has said it plans to offer a Windows-compatible service, but such a service is not yet available.
Sean Gallagher, an analyst at Eduventures, a market-research company based in Boston, says that few standards or accepted practices exist today for managing digital rights. “I think Apple is somewhat proprietary in how its iTunes service is linked up to the Macintosh.” The service is linked to sales of Apple’s iPod music player, “so there’s a good alignment there,” he says.
Data submitted by companies that respond to the request for information will be collected and distributed to colleges and also published on the Educause Web site. “The plan is to make it widely available,” Mr. Luker says.
The task force members expect that individual colleges will use the information to contact the companies that provide digital-content services, to selectively test the services on their own campuses, and ultimately to recommend or perhaps to subsidize one or more of them.
“If you give them an easy, authorized way to do it,” says Mr. Hoch, “then you’re much more likely to have a successful service for your students.”