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MPAA, RIAA Join Internet2

The research consortium running the next generation Internet2, high-speed advanced networking network today said that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) have joined the consortium as corporate members. The move taps the two entertainment industry groups into the development of the next generation network, which has been a source of pain for the groups as a high speed platform for file sharing of movies and sound recordings. The consortium said that the membership will allow the associations to collaborate with the Internet2 community on content distribution and digital rights management technologies. The groups said that the Internet2 provides MPAA and RIAA an innovative testbed for examining future networking and secure distribution capabilities not possible on today's commercial Internet. The RIAA and MPAA have been trying to halt file sharing on the next generation Internet2 by students at the research institutions that are part of the network, as the much higher bandwidth allowed by the network allow for wholesale swapping of very large movie files in seconds. In May, the RIAA filed a second set of lawsuits against 20 schools involved in the Internet2 to halt student file sharing using the i2hub file swapping applications. That lawsuit also included 91 students at those Internet2 schools.