CNET: Hollywood Offering Colleges Copyright Monitor Software for Networks

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 19, 2004 - 4:35am.

San Francisco -- Trade groups representing movie studios and record labels are developing a tool that universities can install on their networks to handle compliance with requests to remove copyrighted files from trading on peer-to-peer services, CNET News.com reported. The Automated Copyright Notice System (ACNS), developed jointly by Vivendi Universal Entertainment and Universal Music Group, is an open-source, royalty-free system that schools and ISPs can use to implement their policies when a user receives a "takedown notice" to remove copyrighted content from the network, either disabling the user's Internet access or informing them of other disciplinary measures. Firms including BayTSP and MediaSentry have begun to either test ACNS or offer it as a solution to their customers on behalf of the entertainment industry. "We're helping the ISP or university with policy enforcement," BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa told News.com. "We're not dictating the policy, but we're saying, 'Here's a tool to help with automating the process.' We're the friends of the ISP." News.com noted that the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on Monday implemented a system similar to ACNS for the 7,500 faculty and staff that live on its campus.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5194341.html