The Other Hit List
April 2, 2007 – 11:44 amArs Technica reports on the MPAA’s “dishonor roll”, a list of the 25 colleges and universities with the most identified instances of unauthorized copying. Bill’s, Lokman’s, and my own school, the University of Pennsylvania, comes in at #2. Our own honor roll may depend on which schools stand up to bullies seeking to subpoena their students, or at least give students a heads up that it might be time to seek legal counsel.
As Ars points out, the MPAA’s list is mimicking the same tactic recently employed by the RIAA. Penn didn’t make it to that February list. The 2006 introduction of Ruckus access may have something to do with that, perhaps because it reduced P2P downloading or because adoption of the service was a token gesture to industry pressure. Tracks downloaded off Ruckus cannot be played on iPods or PowerMac-based Apple computers, and expire once a Ruckus subscriptions is cancelled (i.e., after graduation).
Thanks to Dan for the link.
One Response to “The Other Hit List”
The Universitty of Massachusetts Amherst (#9 on the list!) SGA purchased Ruckus about two years ago, but a study by OIT showed no change in rates of piracy. The people who conducted the study specualte that the lack of mac support (an ever growing number on campus), missing compatabilitiy with iPods, and generally poor song selection failed to generate any sufficient level of conversion from illegal methods of aquisition.
By Tony on Apr 5, 2007