In 2005, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) blamed college students for 44 percent of their revenue losses, but more recent figures show that coeds are actually responsible for only about 15 percent.

The incorrect figure, blamed on "human error", indicated that college students were responsible for losses totaling about three-quarter billion dollars, mostly from the illegal downloading of movies, The Associated Press reported. The industry's total loss to piracy is about $6.1 billion.

Some students say the industry's scapegoating of college students is unfair.

"People automatically assume that all college students are illegally downloading movies because they think we're financially unstable and rebellious," said Melissa Whitten (junior-crime, law and justice). "I wouldn't even know how to download a movie."

Kevin Morooney, vice provost of information technology at Penn State, said the recent news should open up the conversation on digital copyright laws.

"Pirating is not just an issue in higher education --- it's an issue in the world all over, wherever there are computers and networks," he said. "That doesn't absolve higher education in its equation in the conversation, but hopefully changes the conversation to how we can change the law in the best interests of copyright producers and customers."

In 2000, Penn State President Graham Spanier, who co-chairs the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, along with Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) President Cary Sherman, decided to adopt music service Napster to help combat illegal file sharing and downloading, Morooney said. Spanier also testified before the U.S. Congress in 2002 on the issue of illegal file sharing.

The university switched from fee-based Napster to Ruckus last April in order to save students' information technology fees for emergency services such as PSUTXT.

Another student compared the MPAA to the RIAA, blaming both industry associations for attacking their own customers.

"Once the MPAA and the RIAA really support artists, we'll see a lot less of pirating and more appreciation of the art," Joshua Lenes (junior-psychology and women's studies) said. "If you want to punish your own customers and accuse us all of illegal downloading, we're not going to like you back."

Lenes also said this is not the first time the MPAA has tried this tactic.

Penn State has bandwidth limits and network hardware installed to enforce copyright infringement policies in accordance with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Morooney said, but the job still falls to copyright producers to monitor and protect their material.

"We have a profound role to play. We do education; that's our core business," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.