New file-sharing site appears despite recent RIAA lawsuit

A new file sharing search engine named Incognito has recently been made available to students on the Princeton network through a link on the Princeton Portal Project website.

Matthew Stack '03, who developed both the Portal website and Incognito, said he took steps to ensure that no copyright laws were infringed. Concern over copyright violation has heightened since the Recording Industry Association of America sued Dan Peng '05 in early April, contending that his file-sharing search engine at wake.princeton.edu facilitated the transfer of copyrighted music.

Stack cited a genuine academic need for such a search engine, as well considerable student interest in gaining access to network files for legitimate purposes. Incognito, which is only accessible from within the University and not open to distribution, is no more of a target for copyright violation than a Windows XP search engine, Stack said.

"I'd like to think that from a technological and implementation perspective I did look at some of the other systems that were targeted by the RIAA," Stack said, "to see what was wrong with them and why it was illegal and how can I make a system that is supportive of the students needs and still legal because of the need of a search engine like this."

Incognito works like other multimedia search engines such as Altavista and Google, Stack said. He posted a legal disclaimer on the website, in addition to the terms of use and a privacy statement, which can be consulted for further information about legal concerns.

"I wanted to remind students of the importance of copyright," Stack said, "especially in this day where the RIAA is going after anybody with mp3's."

In the event that he is contacted to remove the website from the Internet, Stack has written a program in the past week, available for download under the same name, which would allow file sharing to continue. This program constitutes the back end of the interface, while the front end operates from find.Princeton.edu, the Portal website.

"The program is definitely out there in circulation," Stack said, "and it provides somewhat of an insurance."

There is no way to distinguish between those individuals abide by copyright law and those who don't, noted Stack, who is willing to make Incognito a subscription service or make other limitations if necessary.

"If it's an issue and technology needs to be implemented on the search engine, I will investigate that," Stack added.

The academic value of file sharing within the network is his main priority, Stack said, mentioning students who shared images for senior thesis work, engineers and math students who shared math lab scripts instead of using other search engines, and students who legitimately exchange un-copyrighted music.

Those students who were charged with violating copyright law were probably sharing their own mp3's, said Stack, who does not share files from his own computer.

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Stack said that Incognito was set up especially in light of the lawsuit against Peng, who will be defended in court by former University general counsel Howard Ende along with Melissa Klipp from Drinker, Biddle & Reath, a local firm.

Stack also referred to the recent federal court decision to deny a request to shut down Morpheus and Groster, and noted that this is the first time that courts are recognizing the different forms of legal file-sharing technology.

Stack is used to working with OIT, which supervises Internet services in the University. He has consulted with OIT on the Portal Project website and a number of other websites he runs, among them the website for McCosh Health Center, the Dean of Undergraduate students, Student Agencies, and Cap and Gown Club, Stack said.

Stack said OIT knows about the find.Princeton.edu interface. He said OIT has taken a relatively neutral stance on specific websites but has taken a proactive stand on the issue of file sharing.

"OIT is known to contact students with mp3's on their computer and ask that they be removed," Stack said.

OIT will greatly benefit from the lower bandwidth that accompanies the use of network search engines as opposed to outside ones.

"Without the search engine students are more inclined to install programs like KaZaa, Morpheus, Nutella and that kind of thing," Stack said. "As far as OIT is concerned each of those programs requires a lot of outgoing and ingoing bandwidth, whereas a program like this that encourages sharing among students will lower bandwidth."

Stack is certain that his program fully abides by copyright law and is not daunted by the recent onslaught of investigations brought by the RIAA.

"I wrote technology to ensure that something like this will always stay up," Stack said.