Created: 9/10/2003 10:56:54 AM 
TALLAHASSEE, FL (AP) -- With students back on campus, several Florida universities are working to prevent illegal file-sharing to help in the music and movie industries' ongoing battle against online piracy.
The universities want to free up space for legitimate academic needs and their tactics coincide with an aggressive anti-piracy effort by the music industy's largest trade group -- whose members have watched compact disc sales decline as illegal file-sharing has grown.
The University of Florida in Gainesville began using locally developed software this summer allowing the housing department to detect and stop file-sharing among students in its dorms. Students caught in the act twice are shut off for five days from Internet access while those caught a third time lose Internet privileges indefinitely.
Over the summer, 1,200 students were caught sharing music, movies or pornography. Four were eventually banned from the computer network, said Rob Bird, UF's coordinator of network services.
"Most students stop after the first warning," Bird said.
In Florida State University dormitories, computer technicians purposely segregated large transmissions, as file-sharing programs often require, into narrow bandwidths forcing traffic jams and making it difficult to download files.
Students at Florida International University, meanwhile, are barred from receiving any file larger than 13 megabytes and sending a file larger than five megabytes. A single compact disc holds more than 600 megabytes and one song typically ranges between three and five megabytes.
Last month the Recording Industry Association of America subpoenaed nearly 1,000 Internet service providers, including seven colleges, for identities of alleged pirates. And on Monday, the industry filed 261 lawsuits across the country against individual Internet users who have allegedly shared music illegally.
Rich Taylor, vice president for public affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America, called the universities' efforts "good news."
"The greater the reduction in looting and digital shoplifting, the greater the chance that legitimate legal online options will grow," Taylor said.
Brie Mereness, an 18-year-old University of Florida freshman, said she wiped clean her computer hard drive of all file-sharing software after hearing about possible ramifications during an orientation session.
"I'm trying to convince my friends at other colleges out of state to download music and send it to me on a CD," she said. "That's how bad it's getting."
But one of her UF classmates said students are already adjusting. Evan Kim, 18, of Tampa, said some of his dorm mates are thwarting the new software by using a program called Kazaa Lite. One friend was able to download 70 songs and two movies during a recent spree, Kim said.
"I consider about $1 per song to be a fair price, but I can't justify buying a CD for $15 when I only like two songs," he said.
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