Ten Australian Universities are facing claims for compensation and possible legal action for allowing students and staff to copy music on their networks. The Australian Record Industry Association has decided to go after them. "There is a real culture of copyright infringement in Australian universities," says the head of ARIA"s anti-piracy operation, Michael Speck, "the university"s own fingerprints is on the activity." Implying that university staff are as much to blame as the students.
Amongst the ten targets, the South Australian and New South Wales universities claimed to have no knowledge of music piracy happening on their networks but ARIA says, "prevent it from happening, compensate the victims properly and punish those responsible for misusing the systems." ARIA did admit that sometimes it wasn"t the university itself to blame directly but seems determined to chase them for turning a blind eye. At least one of the ten universities has suspended staff pending their own investigations.