Media Companies Target File Trading on Research Network

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Record label and movie studio investigators said on Tuesday they plan to sue more than 400 college students who used a special high-speed network to copy songs and movies.

Broadband networks made college campuses hotbeds of illegal copying, but students now use an even faster network known as Internet2, trade groups for the two industries said.

Designed for academic research, Internet2's extremely fast speed allows users to download a movie in 5 minutes or a song in less than

20 seconds. Existing cable or DSL broadband networks usually take an hour to download a movie and 2 minutes to download a song.

"Internet2 is increasingly becoming the network of choice for students looking to steal songs and other copyrighted works on a massive scale," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.

Those targeted in the lawsuits made an average of 3,900 files available for copying over the network, Sherman said on a conference call.

Users logged on to the network on Monday were sharing 99 terabytes of material, the equivalent of an entire video-rental store, said Dan Glickman, who heads the Motion Picture Association of America, on a separate conference call.

The group said it sued 405 students at 18 schools. The MPAA declined to say how many lawsuits it had filed.

Individuals were not named in the lawsuits, but their names will likely be uncovered as the cases move forward.

Over the past two years, the RIAA has sued more than 9,000 individuals who distribute and copy their songs using "peer to peer" software like Grokster and Morpheus. The MPAA began to sue individuals in November.

Media companies also have sued the software makers, but so far, courts have found they can't be held responsible for the actions of their users. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the case by June.

Those targeted in the latest round of lawsuits used software called i2hub, which was specifically designed for use over Internet2.

The RIAA has not sued the makers of the software, Sherman said, adding "we are making no decision at this time about future action."

Glickman said he had a message for the creators of the software: "We know who you are, and we strongly encourage you to stop what you are doing."

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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Someone please correct me if I am wrong on this, but I thought that 'Internet2' was designed for use mostly by sites in the '.edu' domain as a way to get around, as much as possible, the mounds of spam and scam that has taken over so much of the 'regular internet'. I understand 'Internet2' is by and large not reachable from the 'regular internet' except through certain gateways, etc. Am I right on this? PAT]