Universities worry that providing Internet access may have legal costs

Medagogical incentives for enabling every student to access the Internet seem to multiply by the hour. But the legal ambiguities of becoming an Internet service provider require careful scrutiny. Are universities responsible for what students, faculty, or staff do online?

The heavy-metal band Metallica thinks so. In April the group filed suit against Indiana University, the University of Southern California, and Yale University, among others, for their role in allowing students to download files of recorded performances for free, using software made available by the online music service Napster. The universities responded by blocking access to Napster and were accordingly dropped from the suit. In September Howard King, a lawyer representing Metallica and the hip-hop artist Dr. lire, followed up by sending letters to a number of other institutions asking them to restrict access to Napster. Though he ineluded copies of his earlier lawsuit with the letters, the lawyer said that his intention was not to threaten but to encourage universities to "do the responsible thing," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Some faculty members and administrators agree that institutions' responsibility for students includes monitoring their Web use and trying to prevent unethical activities, and many agree that swapping files of recorded performances amounts to theft of intellectual property. But others see blocking access to certain Internet sites as a kind of censorship inimical to the university's ethos of freedom of intellect and inquiry. "Our policy regarding Internet use is not to monitor what people are doing," says Virgil Renzulli, a spokesperson for Columbia University. Columbia was one of the recipients of King's letter. "If we are alerted to specific copyright violations, such as material improperly posted on a Columbia Web site, we remove the material. But we do not go looking for violations."

Though Napster itself may be put out of business by lawsuits, similar file-sharing services exist on the Web, and the issue of university liability won't go away. The courts have issued few rulings on the matter thus far. In a related ruling last May, the Supreme Court let stand a lower-court decision saying that Internet service providers cannot be held liable if users write defamatory e-mail messages or post slanderous comments on electronic bulletin boards.

Copyright American Association of University Professors Nov/Dec 2000
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