During a Thursday hearing of the House subcommittee on courts, the Internet and intellectual property, chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and ranking member Howard Berman (D-Calif.) announced they intend to ask the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. They did not specify when they would make the request, but a congressional source said "definitely within the next two weeks."
The hearing, which focused on a new report on the status of illegal file-sharing on college campuses, drew testimony from two university officials, one official from the Motion Picture Assn. of America and the chairman of an online entertainment-subscription service designed for college communities.
Collectively, the report and the testimony painted a picture of growth in legal downloading (primarily of music) and successful deployment of technology that can monitor file-sharing activity. But it also showed that more needs to be done.
For example, the report, prepared by the academic-industry Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, noted: "Since last year, the number of schools with legitimate (downloading) services on campus has more than tripled to nearly 70. ... the level at which students use these legitimate services on campus varies from school to school, often depending upon the accompanying means by which administrators address the piracy issue."
An administrator from the U. of Texas and another from the U. of Florida described their respective on-campus programs and initiatives aimed at stemming illegal P2P file-sharing on the school Ethernet, where most piracy by students occurs.
Smith and Berman hope a GAO study will explain in detail why different universities are having different degrees of success against P2P piracy.