MPAA Dishonor roll

MPAA names its Top 25 movie piracy schools
By Ken Fisher Published: April 02, 2007 - 01:05AM CT

The MPAA may be gearing up for an RIAA-inspired assault on US colleges and universities. Last week the group announced its support for the "Curb Illegal Downloading on College Campuses Act (2007)," and MPAA head Dan Glickman said that his organization would work with school administrators to put an end to movie piracy on campuses, which Glickman says costs the industry $500 million annually.

Most telling, the group has heard the call of Representative Howard Berman and has compiled a list of the most piracy-ridden schools in higher education. This is a page straight out of the RIAA playbook. Here they are, the schools that made the MPAA's "dishonor roll" and the number of students identified as making unauthorized use of copyrighted materials:

Columbia University - 1,198
University of Pennsylvania - 934
Boston University - 891
University of California at Los Angeles - 889
Purdue University - 873
Vanderbilt University - 860
Duke University - 813
Rochester Institute of Technology - 792
University of Massachusetts - 765
University of Michigan - 740
University of California at Santa Cruz - 714
University of Southern California - 704
University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 637
North Carolina State University - 636
Iowa State University - 586
University of Chicago - 575
University of Rochester - 562
Ohio University - 550
University of Tennessee - 527
Michigan State University - 506
Virginia Polytechnic Institute - 457
Drexel University - 455
University of South Florida - 447
Stanford University - 405
University of California at Berkeley - 398

A number of schools have the dubious distinction of being on both the MPAA and the RIAA list. The overachievers are: Ohio University (#1 RIAA/#18 MPAA), Purdue University (#2, #5), University of Nebraska at Lincoln (#3/#13), UMASS (#6/#9), Michigan State (#7/#20), North Carolina State (#9/#14), University of South Florida (#11/#23), Boston University (#15/#3), and the University of Michigan (#18/#10). In all, 10 schools appear on both lists, and Purdue University wins the Gold Medal for highest overall ranking between the two combined.
Whether or not the MPAA will get into the trenches and follow the RIAA's pre-litigation strategy is not yet clear, and historically the MPAA has been less eager to wage a public campaign against file sharing. But like Santa, the MPAA is making a list and checking it twice... the question is, are they merely humoring Representative Berman or planning something more aggressive?

Anyone else find it kind of cool when you see 3 Big-11 schools in the top rankings for once? OK, 4 if you include the fact that University of Chicago was an original Big-10 school.
LOL