"I would classify all of the above as minorpiracy, and as things that happen all the time,not only at Harvard but everywhere," Kim said. "Ofcourse, minor or not, they are still illegal," headded.

Others agreed that these types of minor piracyabound.

"Here at Harvard, software piracy is notuncommon," Osterberg said, "It's not at alluncommon for roommates or friends to copycommercial software back and forth amongstthemselves."

Both Osterberg and Kim said they had not seenany software piracy operations at Harvard on thescale of LaMacchia's operation at MIT.

Harvard's Rules

The LaMacchia case raises the question of whatHarvard can and should do to prevent suchincidences of large scale piracy from occurringhere.

"Harvard has to worry about this sort ofthing," Kim said. "The MIT incident was by nomeans the first and will not be the last."

Kim stressed the importance of educating usersas to the issues and consequences related tocomputer piracy.

"Once Harvard administrators can be comfortablesaying, `Yes, the students are aware of the issuesand of the potential consequences,' then you canbe more comfortable with the current policies andrules," Kim said.

The rules would have to be constantly evaluatedand modified with student input, Kim said, addingthat he did not think this would happen anytimesoon.

Stafford agreed that Harvard ought to educateits users.

"Harvard should make it clear that students areresponsible for the information that they put onthe network," Stafford said.

Stafford lamented what he sees as Harvard'slack of clear guidelines for computer users.

And Osterberg agreed that the guidelines arenot clear enough on computer and network activity.

"There's not a whole lot Harvard can do in thepreventive stages," Osterberg said. "It's ratherdifficult to monitor that kind of activity on theInternet."