Summary of the CSG Workshop on the Misappropriation of Copyrighted Materials

Educause Policy ConferenceArlington, Virginia

May 8, 2008

Charles F. LeonhardtGeorgetown University

leonhardt@georgetown.edu (for the CSG Membership)

What is the CSG? The Common Solutions Group is comprised of 28 major

research universities institutions and higher education IT consortia involved with intensively networked communities who work together to create a common infrastructure and toolsets required for the future at our institutions.

Where feasible, these common solutions are provided by commercial providers under contract to the CSG universities. Where commercial solutions are infeasible, highly talented individuals from participating CSG universities are commissioned to provide them.

The CSG meets three times a year to share knowledge and concerns among CIOs, lead technologists, and others from our membership. These typically are hosted on a university campus. The last meeting was held at Virginia Tech on January 9-11, 2008.

Selection of Topics

Long and Short Workshops and Policy Discussions for the “next” meeting are nominated and voted upon at the “current” meeting.

“Issues around the Misappropriation of Copyrighted Materials” received the most votes for the full-day long workshop at Virginia Tech during the September meeting at MIT. “Most votes” for any category are a good indication of “what’s hot” in higher education.

Workshop Coordinators are required. The long workshop at

VT was very ably coordinated by Greg Jackson (Univ of Chicago), Charles Antonelli (Univ of Michigan), Steve Worona (Educause), and Oren Sreebny (Univ of Washington).

Rationale for the Workshop

Unauthorized online sharing of copyrighted material challenges copyright holders, network operators, and media customers alike.

To better understand the role current technologies might play in addressing these challenges, the CSG invited leading vendors of detection and suppression technologies to present and discuss the architecture and implementation of their products at an intensive workshop at Virginia Tech on January 9.

Rationale for the Workshop

The workshop grew out of earlier discussions sponsored by the Technology Task Force of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, chaired by Brit Kirwan of the University System of Maryland and Cary Sherman of the RIAA.

Three vendors (Audible Magic, Red Lambda, and SafeMedia) each described their technology, participated in a panel discussion, and then answered questions from approximately one hundred workshop participants.

Long Workshop Agenda Overview of the Long Workshop, Introductions Technical Presentations from Infringement-Suppression

Technology Vendors: Audible Magic Red Lambda SafeMedia

General questions & discussion Campus Counsel Panel

Steve McDonald (Rhode Island School of Design) Beth Cate (Indiana University) Lee Smith (University of Texas, Austin) Jack Bernard (University of Michigan)

Policy Panel Mark Bruhn (Indiana University) Bill Clebsch (Stanford) Tracy Mitrano (Cornell) Kent Wada (UCLA)

Audible Magic

Audible Magic’s CopySense technology:

Reliably identifies only material that is registered with the vendor.

Is not “savvy” as even modest encryption enables peer-to-peer traffic to bypass Audible Magic detection.

Red Lambda

Red Lambda’s cGrid technology:

Detects traffic patterns rather than actually suppressing infringement.

Requires considerable administrative expense as well as specific network architecture and management tools to translate identification of patterns into suppression of infringement.

SafeMedia

SafeMedia’s Clouseau technology:

Blocks any communications its vendor deems undesirable.

Disturbingly, network operators can not override this blocking locally, even if the vendor blocks important non-infringing communications or otherwise disrupts network operations and effectiveness.

Summary Observations

Although each of the technologies we discussed“works” in a narrow technical sense, it is the sense ofCSG workshop participants that

“current products cannot stop all (or even most) unauthorized sharing of Copyrighted material withoutinterfering with the efficiency ofthe networks essential to researchand teaching in higher education.”

Summary Observations

Current technologies can affect unauthorizedsharing. However:

Their effectiveness is very limited.

They can suppress legitimate traffic alongwith infringing traffic.

They are expensive.

Summary Observations

Although new approaches may yield effective,inexpensive, operationally benign infringement-suppression technologies in the future, Implementing current technologies simply will:

Increase tuition and research costs

Degrade network performance while yielding only modest effects on unauthorized sharing

It’s Not a Technology Problem!

Business and policy challenges surrounding online media continue to evolve.

The technology of online media distribution and sharing - both legal and illegal - also is evolving.

Given the limited ability of technology to reduce unauthorized online sharing, which the CSG workshop made abundantly clear, effectively mitigating online copyright infringement requires much more than technological solutions!

Education of Consumers is Key

The challenge is fundamentally educational, and it must be addressed throughout formal and continuing education.

The educational message will become far more effective as more appealing legal distribution mechanisms emerge.

And the educational message must be reinforced by appropriate penalties for non-compliance that are fairly, diligently, and uniformly imposed, as is the case today within most research universities.

CSG members remain eager to collaborate with other interested parties in a multi-faceted approach to the challenge.

More Information

At the CSG Website http://www.stonesoup.orgyou will find:

The formal CSG statement of summary observations from the workshop, and web links to responses from each of the three vendors as they choose to make one.

Copies of the presentations delivered throughout the day (under “Past Meetings / Virginia Tech”)

More information about the CSG and its membership.