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http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s800641.htm

Friday, March 7, 2003. Posted: 01:25:04 (AEDT)

Record companies take unis to court over music piracy
Record companies EMI, Universal and Sony have said they hoped three Australian universities would address alleged music copyright infringements, erasing the need for further court action.

The companies have taken the universities to the Federal Court over alleged music piracy detected by a routine check on Internet usage, a spokesman for the Music Industry Piracy Investigators (MIPI), Michael Speck, said.

They are seeking access to the universities' computer systems to more precisely track the infringements.

But at least one university, the University of Melbourne, said it was reluctant to give external investigators access to its computers.

Mr Speck said MIPI's surveillance discovered that staff and students had been "providing instructions on how to rip off music".

"Staff members and students were either hosting caches of illegal MP3 music files or linking to those files," he said.

Mr Speck said 11 universities had been detected and the companies had started court proceedings against the Universities of Melbourne, Tasmania and Sydney after they refused to cooperate.

He said at least 400 music tracks had been identified and "a few" Internet sites had taken several hits but without access to more precise evidence, held by the universities on their computer systems, the companies could not determine how much the infringements were worth.

The University of Melbourne last week agreed to preserve the evidence until the court reached a decision on access but would not grant it for the moment.

"We believe that it raises many concerns, not least of which is student and staff privacy," university vice-principal Helen Hayes said.

She said two websites, unrelated to the university but created by its students, had been found by MIPI to have links to Internet sites which allegedly offered free access to commercial music.

Ms Hayes said the links were removed as soon as the university was informed and the students had been counselled.