UNC Launches First Multi-Campus Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Initiative — UNCW One of Four Test Sites
10/15/2004 11:01:43 AM
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CHAPEL HILL and WILMINGTON, N.C. – In recent months, colleges and universities across the nation have made significant progress in their efforts to curtail the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted music files from the Internet. As noted in an August report sent to Congress by the Joint Committee on the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, some 20 institutions have implemented legitimate file-sharing arrangements that provide students with free access to online music libraries, each involving a single distributor using a specific business model.
Beginning this fall, the 16-campus University of North Carolina is launching a far more comprehensive effort to study and respond to the problem of file-sharing in higher education. With staggered implementation, six UNC campuses will serve as test sites for the legitimate digital delivery of audio and video content to students – not only for simple entertainment uses, but also for course work, classroom use and application to distance education. This unique experiment – which will involve multiple campuses, multiple applications and multiple legitimate vendors – also will involve UNC faculty and partners in research targeted at better understanding the roots of copyright infringement and formulating real long-term solutions.
Participating campuses include UNC Wilmington, NC A&T State University, the NC School of the Arts, NC State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Western Carolina University.
Molly Corbett Broad, president of UNC and a member of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities that has grappled with this issue for the past two years, says that while higher education has long touted the academic value of peer-to-peer file sharing, it has done little to demonstrate or quantify that value. The UNC initiative is the first comprehensive attempt to address that shortcoming.
“While providing legitimate access, increasing student and faculty education, and consistently enforcing violations of policy and law are imperative to addressing the legal and ethical issues P2P has raised, the real breakthrough will come when we uncover how to cost-effectively use these technologies in teaching and research and how to influence the business models used by media industries to complement the goals of higher education,” said Broad.
To that end, four UNC institutions are launching the following pilot programs this fall:
• UNC Wilmington is partnering with Cdigix to make entertainment music available to students living in campus residence halls. UNCW will research implications for movies, local campus content and information, and classroom delivery as the pilot progresses.
• The NC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem is partnering with Apple to use the Apple suite of music and video delivery technology (including iPod and iTunes) to provide content for student coursework and classroom use, entertainment services, and as a vehicle for delivering continuing copyright education. In addition, Apple will join with UNC to research the best uses for digital delivery in higher education.
• NC A&T State University in Greensboro will partner with Ruckus to deliver entertainment music to students living in campus residence halls. Movies, local campus content and information, and classroom delivery will be researched as the project develops.
• Western Carolina University in Cullowhee is partnering with Rhapsody to deliver entertainment music to students living on campus. A study is already under way on the use of the content-delivery system in the classroom.
Meanwhile, UNC’s two major research universities are planning for a spring 2005 launch:
• NC State University will augment its extensive education efforts by providing student access to and support for a variety of alternative legal downloading services. In addition, NCSU will explore the use of content distributors in distance education contexts under the TEACH Act.
• UNC-Chapel Hill also will augment its extensive education and disciplinary measures by supplying preloaded music and targeted educational content to students as a means of reinforcing positive legal behavior.
The first-semester costs of these six pilot programs are being funded through a grant from a major music label, which was impressed by the multi-level approach being employed by UNC. Ongoing campus participation will be determined by each campus as student demand, pricing, and other business model opportunities develop. Caching servers for all participating service providers will be located at MCNC, the Research Triangle-based organization that provides high-speed computing services for North Carolina’s higher education community. Each service provider will pay MCNC for its own rackspace and bandwidth.
On a systemwide level, the UNC Office of the President is working with participating campuses to explore academic uses of P2P technologies, as well as effective education and awareness tools, policy enforcement, and business model developments. For example, UNC is developing a proposal for a service provider to partner with the University in the development of an educational program on copyright infringement that could be utilized throughout higher education.
At the same time, staff are working closely with selected vendors to identify new models for accessing both music and movie content under fair-use classifications. Faculty are exploring a number of potential uses of software tools and distribution services in the classroom. UNC is also partnering with pilot campuses and their libraries to research the number of classical/jazz reserves that might be digitized and distributed using P2P technologies.
Nationally, UNC campus policies and practices addressing this complicated issue are considered among the very best, and the university has exhibited leadership in addressing copyright infringement, with special emphasis on the issues surrounding student use of file-sharing applications. UNC campuses have implemented technological measures to thwart illegal file sharing, but without compromising privacy or academic freedom by monitoring content. In addition, campus education and discipline programs have been extremely effective, resulting in recidivist rates across the university of less than one percent. Research conducted in conjunction with this latest initiative will help identify additional steps higher education might take to reduce illegal file sharing, as well as the larger societal issues that must be addressed.
For additional information contact: UNC Office of the President, Division of University Affairs, 919-843-5365, www.northcarolina.edu/news
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Free Music Pilot for UNCW Residence Hall Students
Effective Friday, Oct. 15, free music downloads are now available to UNCW residence hall students. Thanks to the combined efforts of Information Technology Systems, Student Affairs and the UNC Office of the President, UNCW is one of four universities in the UNC system to implement a music pilot this fall. Until the end of the semester, students who live in the residence halls will have access to nearly one million music tracks through Cdigix, and they can download these tracks onto a Windows computer or a Windows media-enabled portable device and listen to them free of charge. At this time the service does not support Apple computers due to technical issues. Students also have the option to pay 89 cents per song for a permanent download, which can be burned to a CD or MP3 player and kept forever.
Cdigix will be on campus for a big tent event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday, Oct. 25, in the yard between Galloway Residence Hall and the University Apartments. There will be free food, entertainment, giveaways, such as CDs, key chains and Frisbees and demonstrations on how to use Cdigix’s service.
It is illegal to share copyrighted materials through peer-to-peer file sharing; however, this option is a legal and virus-free alternative. If the fall pilot is successful, next semester Cdigix will give students the option of rolling into an “opt in – opt out” model for a monthly service fee of $2.99, plus a small cost to burn songs to CDs.
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To learn more about Cdigix, go to www.cdigix.com.
For more information, contact Tom Warner, UNC director of coordinated technology management: (919) 485-3223 or twarner@northcarolina.edu. At UNCW, please contact Bobby Miller, assistant vice chancellor for information technology, 910/962-3529 on Oct. 15, and Sean Ahlum, housing and residence life, 910/962-3573 after Oct. 18.
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