A combination of authorized music services and lawsuits is helping to control illegal file swapping on campuses, a joint entertainment industry-university group said Tuesday.
In the last year, more than 20 schools have signed up for deeply discounted access to music services such as Napster, MusicNet and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities said in a report to Congress. In the same period, 158 students have been sued for copyright infringement, the group said.
“Since the beginning of the last school year we have seen progress on all counts,” Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and co-chairman of the joint group, said in a conference call with reporters. “A legion of college music fans who are getting their music for free and getting the impression that music has no value are now being introduced to the idea that music does have value.”
In some cases, the traffic devoted to peer-to-peer networks on campuses has dropped by as much as half, the group said.
The report to Congress comes two years after the formation of the cross-industry group and more than a year after the consortium began focusing heavily on ways to provide legal music services on campus that might entice students away from peer-to-peer networks.
