Music isn't the only industry where online piracy has been an issue. The film industry is dealing with the effects of illegal downloading, and a portion of the blame is because of college students, according to the Movie Picture Association of America (MPAA).
At the start of this year, the MPAA faulted college students for 15 percent of its revenue loss, according to The Associated Press.
It has been difficult for the film industry to combat illegal downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing because there are simply too many gateways open, said Matthew Jackson, department head of telecommunications at Penn State and expert in intellectual property law.
"It's like whack-a-mole, put one site out of business and two are made in its place," he said.
Illegal downloads are considered by law copyright infringement. The minimum fine is $750 but charges can run up to $50,000, which doesn't include legal fees incurred, he added.
University policy remains the same for music downloading, film downloading and peer-to-peer file sharing, Penn State spokeswoman Jill Shockey said.
After the illegal downloading that happened through Napster five years ago, people are more aware, and fearful, of the consequences, Jackson said.
Students have four gigabytes of bandwidth per week on campus, and if students exceed that amount they are notified, said Robin Anderson, director of customer communications for Information Technology Services (ITS).
The first time the limit is exceeded there is an e-mail notification, the second time another notification is sent, and the third time the user's Internet access is either turned off or slowed down, she said.
Off-campus students have different or unlimited bandwith limits, depending on their Internet provider.
As video streaming and online downloads grow in popularity, they need more bandwidth, which could cause ITS to assess bandwidth limits in the future, but there are currently no changes underway, Robinson added.
ITS is currently not monitoring online piracy and will not take action unless contacted by the film or music industry, Anderson said.
"Some universities are monitoring it, but not Penn State," she said.
Actions on the Web are not anonymous and can be tracked easily, Jackson said. Every computer has a specific IP address and if that site is being tracked, the IP address can be traced back to the user, he said.
Some students recognize the seriousness of illegal film downloads.
Gregory Trim (junior-chemical engineering) said he knows many students who download films illegally, but believes film downloading is wrong because of the effort it takes to create movies in the first place.
"One individual comes and in 45 minutes, gets the production that they worked so hard on for months," Trim said.
Although illegal film downloading sites have become more popular, the film industry is not hurting significantly, Jackson said.
The actual experience of going to the theater also keeps people from downloading current films, he added. Films being downloaded are ones people would normally purchase so DVD sales are most affected, he said.
In 2005, the MPAA found $18.2 billion dollars in revenue were lost through piracy by distributors, theaters, producers, video stores and pay-per-view operators, as reported in The New York Times in April.
There are new technologies, however, that allow the industry to close some sites down. They have programs called "bots" that act as "24-hour private detectives" to search for copyright infringement, Jackson said.
The industry is also using new technology to encrypt movies to make them more difficult to steal in the first place, he added.
Illegal film downloads, however, will continue to exist as long as the Internet exists, Jackson added.
"It's a constant struggle, I don't think it will ever be completely remedied," he said.
