Washington

A Republican congressman who heads a key committee with jurisdiction over the Internet and intellectual property complained Tuesday about college administrators' "indifference" to illegal file sharing.

Rep. Lamar S. Smith of Texas, who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on courts, the Internet, and intellectual property, used the occasion of a forum on copyright to urge college administrators to be tougher with students who trade music online in violation of copyright law. Most of the speakers at the forum, which was sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation, argued in support of restricting access to creative works on the Internet.

"Look at what is happening on our university campuses," Representative Smith said. "University students illegally download music, sometimes on publicly supported computers. When encouraged to exercise disciplinary measures, too many university administrators react with relative indifference. 'Kids will be kids,' they say."

Yet, he said, it is a "curious inconsistency" that "these same university administrators pursue research-and-development projects as champions of a strong patent law."

No college administrators were invited to speak at the forum. But Sheldon E. Steinbach, vice president and general counsel of the American Council on Education, said Mr. Smith "has a misperception about the commitment that university presidents have in dealing with file sharing." Most presidents, Mr. Steinbach said, want to stop the trading of music online in order to preserve bandwidth for academic purposes.

Mr. Smith told those attending the forum that many of the files available for peer-to-peer file sharing are located at college Internet addresses. "It's unlikely that this amount of file-sharing activity is in furtherance of class assignments," he said.

He said a student involved in illegal file sharing should lose access to the university network or be suspended.

The congressman noted that a Harvard University policy calls for suspending students the second time they are caught trading music online. And he said the U.S. Naval Academy had disciplined midshipmen for illegal file sharing.

"Both cases offer good signs of progress," Representative Smith said.

He said he was encouraged by the work of a committee examining illegal file sharing on campuses, which is headed by Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University.