Ohio State residence hall students continue to share files online after last May’s raid, in which several computers were confiscated. The fate of the four students involved in that incident has yet to be determined.

Patrick Muckerman, Eric Diamond, John Wieseman and Josh Cavinee were allegedly running a program called Direct Connect Hub that allowed students to connect with each other and share files.

More OSU students could have their network privileges revoked by the university or be sued by the Recording Industry Association of America if they continue to download and share files. Resnet and the Office of Information Technology offer materials to students about file sharing.

Marc Otte, a student living in Lincoln Tower, said he had never heard anything from the university regarding file sharing.

But students should also educate themselves on the rules and regulations.

Morril Tower resident Wes Esper said that he felt no one in his hall had made any adjustments in their downloading.

Although. May’s incident did not involve the RIAA, the Resnet office has been contacted by the organization for OSU students sharing copyrighted files online.

“We have been contacted seven or eight times by the organization since the beginning of the quarter,” said Frederic Eliot, network manager for Resnet.

After Resnet is contacted, the specific user’s network access is terminated, and the student is brought in and informed of the university’s policy on file sharing. Eliot said the student is told to delete the illegal files.

Both Resnet and OIT list the OSU policy on appropriate use of the network as well as the copyright laws on their Web sites. In addition, Resnet distributed 5,000 CDs to resident hall residents that contained materials on appropriate use and policy on person-to-person file sharing, Eliot said.

Bob Kalal, director of OIT, and Eliot agreed that students have not informed themselves well enough on the university, state and federal laws on file sharing.

“I don’t think in reality that they think it’s illegal,” Eliot said. “They just think it’s cool to do it.”

Resnet will start a campaign to inform more students by placing posters explaining the policy in residence halls.

OIT is creating a safe-computing Web site that will address file sharing issues for students both on and off campus Kalal said.

It is illegal to run person-to-person file sharing programs on OSU networks, but neither Kalal nor Eliot said that their offices pressed charges against the students.

Along with the university’s policy, Ohio law prohibits the use of a network “beyond the scope of the express consent of the owner of the computer network.”

The students may have also broken the Ohio law, which prohibits “having devised a scheme to defraud, to knowingly disseminate, transmit or cause to be transmitted by means of a wire or telecommunications device any picture, sound or image with the purpose to execute or otherwise further the scheme to defraud.”

Ronald Michalec, chief of University Police, said his department had concluded their investigation early in June and had handed the case to the Franklin County Prosecutors Office.

Christy McCreary, spokeswoman for the prosecutors office, could not confirm that their office had received anything related to the case.

Muckerman, Diamond and Wieseman could not be reached for comment. Cavinee declined to comment.