[LINK] Company identifies student downloaders

[Tony Barry]

Extracted item provided for information.

Source:Edupage, November 7, 2001
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COMPANY IDENTIFIES STUDENT DOWNLOADERS
NetPD is a watchdog company that detects student MP3 file sharers
and sends letters to their colleges, ordering them to take down
the copyrighted material or to block students' access in
accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
NetPD uses software that can identify downloaded MP3 songs, even
when they are degraded, said NetPD co-founder Bruce Ward. The
software matches file-shared songs to those in its database by
looking for digital signatures or similar file names. Rodney J.
Petersen of the University of Maryland at College Park argued
that the university has no responsibility to respond to the
letters since its network is just a channel for the copyrighted
material. He said the quarrel should be between students and the
copyright owners. Furthermore, he said the DMCA requires that the
letters must clearly state that the company is an agent of the
copyright holders--something the NetPD letters do not. Letter
content and notification is approved by NetPD's clients before
being sent out, according to Ward.
(Chronicle of Higher Education Online, 7 November 2001)
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