Washington - The U.S. House of Representatives' Science and Technology Committee held a hearing on campus file-sharing on Tuesday, and members said that new legislation may be needed if universities fail to take more action against piracy.

"We're spending a good deal of federal resources in terms of helping universities with their technological improvements, directly and indirectly," House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) said at the hearing, CNET reported.

"Is it responsible for a Congress that wants to protect intellectual property rights to continue to fund network enhancements for universities if some of those enhancements are indirectly being used in fact to promote intellectual property theft?"

The hearing's panel featured administrators from schools including Arizona State University, Illinois State University and the University of Chicago, who testified that filtering and blocking technology has already been employed on their campus networks, with some degree of success.

"So long as the right thing remains more daunting, awkward and unsatisfying than the wrong thing, too many people will do the wrong thing," said Greg Jackson, chief information officer for the University of Chicago.

"If we rely on technology too much, it's going to interfere with legal uses of peer-to-peer technologies," added Cheryl Elzy, dean of libraries at Illinois State.

Related Links:
http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1858

http://tinyurl.com/ywl2z8 (CNET)