RIAA To Sue College Students on Internet2 Research Network

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April 12, 2005 2:01PM

The recording industry said some students engaged in illegal sharing of as many as 13,600 music files across Internet2 -- far more than most Internet users.

The recording industry intends to sue hundreds of college students accused of illegally distributing music and movies across Internet2 , the super-fast computer network connecting leading universities for researching the next generation of the Internet, industry officials said Tuesday.
The Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America , the trade group for the largest labels, said it will file federal copyright lawsuits Wednesday against 405 students at 18 colleges with access to the Internet2 network, which boasts speeds hundreds of times faster than the Internet.

Researchers at Internet2 once demonstrated they can download a DVD-quality copy of the popular movie "The Matrix" in 30 seconds over their network, a feat they said would take roughly 25 hours over the Internet.

Internet2 is used by several million university students, researchers and professionals around the world but is generally inaccessible to the public.

"We don't condone or support illegal file-sharing," said Internet2's chief executive, Doug Van Houweling. "We've always understood that just like there is a lot of file-sharing going on on the public Internet, there's also some file-sharing going on on Internet2."

The recording industry said some students were illegally sharing across Internet2 as many as 13,600 music files -- far more than most Internet users -- and that the average number of songs offered illegally by the students was 2,300 each. It said it found evidence of more illegal file-sharing at 140 more schools in 41 states and sent warning letters to university presidents.

"We cannot let this high-speed network become a zone of lawlessness where the normal rules don't apply," said Cary Sherman, president of the recording association.

The Motion Picture Association of America also was expected to file federal copyright lawsuits Wednesday against college students with access to Internet2.

"The high performance of Internet2 makes it attractive for a lot of applications, not just file-sharing," Van Houweling said. He cautioned universities against filtering data to block illegal activity in ways that would slow the research network's performance.

"It's possible to attack this problem in ways that do compromise the performance," he said.



The lawsuits illustrate the aggressiveness of the entertainment industry to stifle piracy even on up-and-coming technologies, as it continues to individually sue thousands of computer users accused of sharing copyrighted songs and films over the public Internet.

The recording industry said the lawsuits also pierce the perception by Internet2 researchers that they operated in a closed environment that entertainment groups couldn't monitor.

"We are putting students and administrators everywhere on notice that there are consequences for unlawful uses of this special network," Sherman said.

The RIAA declined to explain how it could detect piracy over Internet2 except to say it acted lawfully. Internet2's corporate members include Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., a leading music label. Even Internet2 officials said they were unaware how the entertainment companies traced the purportedly illegal activity on their network.

"They haven't shared with us," Van Houweling said. "We have provided no special access to any of those organizations that would enable them in some non-standard way to gain access to this information."

The RIAA said among the 18 U.S. schools are Princeton University, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .


© 2005 Associated Press.
© 2005 NewsFactor Network.


What is Internet2?

Think of Internet2 as a higher-tech version of the regular Internet. Like "Internet1," Internet2 connects computers all across the country. But it uses newer, more experimental technology. That can make it less stable than Internet1 — but it's also about 100 times as fast under typical conditions.

Who gets to use it?

More than 200 universities and 60 companies belong to Internet2, as do a handful of organizations and government agencies. To join, members must contribute research toward "developing a better Internet," says Douglas Van Houweling, CEO of the non-profit group that runs Internet2. It is not open to the public.

Who pays for it?

Users pay fees to the non-profit that administers the network. A typical university would pay about $200,000 a year. Government agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, also provide some funding.

Is it connected to the regular Internet?

No, it's a separate network. Internet2 users can only contact other Internet2 users. That's why all the accused file-swappers are college students.

The original Internet works fine. Why is Internet2 needed?

In 1969, the University of California at Los Angeles and Stanford University set up a simple computer network that could send data back and forth between the two campuses. For more than 20 years, academics tinkered with this network and its successors. They used the networks to test computer technology and send research data.

In the early 1990s, commercial interest in one of the successor networks, now called the Internet, soared. Web pages popped up, and suddenly it became impractical to tinker with the network for research projects. Scientists wanted their own network again, and in 1996, created Internet2.

What kind of work is done on Internet2?

Research, mostly. At the University of Missouri-Rolla, nuclear engineers use it to send high-quality video links to labs at other universities. At the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), biomedical researchers use it to access giant genetic databases. At Wichita State University, mathematicians use it to tap into distant supercomputers. "It's been a great resource," says Wichita computing director Gary Ott. Companies such as Cisco Systems and IBM also use Internet2 to test networking technologies.

How do you use Internet2?

At many schools, Internet2 is combined with Internet1 behind the scenes. A student sending e-mail will have all her messages travel across Internet1, until she e-mails a student at another Internet2 university. That message travels over Internet2. "It's transparent to users," says David Shealy, academic computing director at UAB.

Will Internet2 ever be open to the public?

Probably not. But the technologies developed in Internet2 will gradually be transferred to the original Internet, making it faster and more stable. The goal is to "create the next-generation Internet," says network director Brian Buege of the University of Missouri-Rolla.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-04-13-qa-internet2_x.htm

http://www.internet2.edu/about/