File Sharing at Universities: Unstoppable!

photo credit: www.independent.co.uk

It has become obvious for everyone except media companies that file sharing is not going anywhere no matter how hard the latter are trying not to accept that. Today’s students, tomorrow’s leaders, are so fond of the p2p sharing phenomenon that it is virtually insane to think you can educate them in thinking and believing otherwise.

Research conducted by a California-based copyright tracking company, Bay-TSP, found that infringing is a common fact even with the most prestigious U.S. colleges and universities. According to Bay-TSP, last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had more cases of illegal file sharing than any other U.S. university. That says something, right?

Let’s have a look at the company's annual report regarding copyright violation and see the “top” most infringing US universities: In the first position we find MIT (for the second year in a row) with 2,593 violations of the copyright law; followed by The University of Washington which scored 1,888 infringements and Boston University “collecting” 1,408 violations for the third position.

Unogateway.com points out the futility in trying to eradicate illegal downloading in universities : “Even with the help of tracking companies, there is little media industries can do, as most violations occur at universities outside the U.S., making the violations at MIT and other American schools pale in comparison. The University of Botswana in Africa and Uppsala University in Sweden topped the list with 9,027 and 8,032 infringements, respectively.”

As stated by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bay-TSP monitors all infringements of media content their clients own including movies, music, software and informs universities.