The MPAA may be gearing up for an RIAA-inspired assault on US colleges and universities. Last week the group announced its support for the "Curb Illegal Downloading on College Campuses Act (2007)," and MPAA head Dan Glickman said that his organization would work with school administrators to put an end to movie piracy on campuses, which Glickman says costs the industry $500 million annually.

Most telling, the group has heard the call of Representative Howard Berman and has compiled a list of the most piracy-ridden schools in higher education. This is a page straight out of the RIAA playbook. Here they are, the schools that made the MPAA's "dishonor roll" and the number of students identified as making unauthorized use of copyrighted materials:

Columbia University - 1,198 University of Pennsylvania - 934 Boston University - 891 University of California at Los Angeles - 889 Purdue University - 873 Vanderbilt University - 860 Duke University - 813 Rochester Institute of Technology - 792 University of Massachusetts - 765 University of Michigan - 740 University of California at Santa Cruz - 714 University of Southern California - 704 University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 637 North Carolina State University - 636 Iowa State University - 586 University of Chicago - 575 University of Rochester - 562 Ohio University - 550 University of Tennessee - 527 Michigan State University - 506 Virginia Polytechnic Institute - 457 Drexel University - 455 University of South Florida - 447 Stanford University - 405 University of California at Berkeley - 398

A number of schools have the dubious distinction of being on both the MPAA and the RIAA list. The overachievers are: Ohio University (#1 RIAA/#18 MPAA), Purdue University (#2, #5), University of Nebraska at Lincoln (#3/#13), UMASS (#6/#9), Michigan State (#7/#20), North Carolina State (#9/#14), University of South Florida (#11/#23), Boston University (#15/#3), and the University of Michigan (#18/#10). In all, 10 schools appear on both lists, and Purdue University wins the Gold Medal for highest overall ranking between the two combined.

Whether or not the MPAA will get into the trenches and follow the RIAA's pre-litigation strategy is not yet clear, and historically the MPAA has been less eager to wage a public campaign against file sharing. But like Santa, the MPAA is making a list and checking it twice... the question is, are they merely humoring Representative Berman or planning something more aggressive?