'F' Is for File Sharing

After network operators began blocking a certain outgoing "port" that Kazaa used to transfer files, Sharman issued a new version of Kazaa that would "hop" from one port to another to evade blocking.

Because of the arms-race nature of the battle between file-swapping companies and network police, such technologies "won't block P2P to zero," but do play a role in an overall anti-file-swapping strategy, the RIAA's Sherman said.

The bandwidth-shaping tools may not have reduced P2P activities to "zero" at any area schools, but they have made a fairly profound dent at some schools. After handling "hundreds" of takedown notices in the 2002-2003 school year, James Madison University only received 40 last year after installing bandwidth-controlling software, said Dale Hulvey, the school's assistant vice president for information technology.

Johns Hopkins spokesman Glen Small said that school only gets two or three takedown notices a semester since it began more aggressively managing its network.

If You Can't Beat Them ...

Easily the splashiest move made so far to curb illegal song swapping in the region has been GWU's announcement that it would give all of its students free subscriptions to the retooled Napster, which now offers legal, licensed songs as an industry-approved download service.

"This issue just kind of grew," said Alexa Kim, GWU's director of student and academic support services. "There was a point in time when Kazaa was controllable in that you could sort of bandwidth shape and keep the usage down. That all changed when Kazaa came out with a new version of their software that hopped ports. That started the discussion about ok how do we deal with this?"

The school got its answer when an anonymous donor contributed an undisclosed sum for the school to provide free Napster subscriptions to any students who want them for the 2004-2005 school year.

With the subscription, students can download unlimited tracks from Napster's 700,000-song library. The downloads are "tethered" so students will lose access to them when their subscription runs out and won't be able to transfer them from their computers to portable devices unless they pay 99 cents per song. Still, they give students access to a massive catalog that they can listen to legally in their rooms, Kim said.

The record industry is very keen on converting the legions of hard-core university pirates into hard-core digital-music buyers and has cleared Napster to offer its service to schools at a deeply discounted rate, said Aileen Atkins, Napster's senior vice president of business affairs.

"The university environment is an important one for anyone selling music. [University students] are also some of the biggest participants early on in file sharing. Up to 80 percent of the bandwidth within a university is being taken up by peer to peer," Atkins said.

Napster inked its first university deal with Pennsylvania State University last year and has since locked down eight more, including the one with GWU. Other companies like RealNetworks, Ruckus Network and Cdigix have moved in to compete with Napster, offering similar deals to schools. Although it doesn't offer a subscription service, Apple has also made inroads into universities, convincing 55 schools to offer free downloads of its iTunes software to their students.

American University, George Mason, Virginia and Maryland are all considering arrangements similar to the GWU deal.

Eric Garland is the chief executive of Atlanta-based Big Champagne, which tracks file-swapping activity. While he's not convinced the legal offerings will appeal to students, he says it may be the best chance for schools and officials to change behavior. "I think the strategy is right," Garland said. "I think you have to try to start with that demographic that constitutes the bleeding edge and you have to try to convince them to buy off on something. To the extent you can get people to pay for popular entertainment online, that is the only strategy."

But Colin, an incoming freshman standing on the stone steps leading up to Denton's wide white doors, said he doesn’t have the money to spend on music downloads. He says he buys about one compact disc a week, but downloads songs from "atrocious" bands like Nickelback that only produce "one good song."

"I don’t think it's any different than listening to the radio and making a tape off the radio, [only] it's more convenient, it's a lot easier to do and it's more variety. If there's a song I want to get, I'll go download it," Colin said. "I definitely support the music industry more than it needs to be supported. When you're charging $17 for a CD that has one good track and file sharing is an option, you cannot expect people to pay for that."

But Sheri, sitting a few feet away on a giant Dell box, offers a more optimistic note for the music industry and college officials. She downloaded songs from the original Napster, but gave it up for fear that one of the viruses that lurk on such networks would ravage the computer that she bought with her own money. If Maryland were to offer a legal alternative "I'd definitely consider that," she said.