NORMAL - An Illinois State University student club that's met several years to watch and discuss movies has landed in the middle of a copyright controversy.

But in this plot, is the ISU group the villain or the victim?

That depends on whom you ask.

East Coast-based New Yorker Films says Illinois State University owes $8,000 for the ISU Cinema Society's showing of 22 of the company's films over a four-year period.

That amount still is being debated, however, as several of the screenings in question actually were shown at the Normal Theater, and only advertised on the ISU group's Web site, said ISU spokesman Jay Groves.

"The real amount could be closer to $5,000," he said.

The club hasn't shown a film since organizers became aware of the New Yorker Films' accusation in December, he said.

On the ISU student organization's Web site, the movie fans bill themselves as a group offering "weekly screenings of avant-garde, foreign, independent, activist and underground films, videos and documentaries." The society met in ISU classrooms and usually followed screenings with a discussion of the work.

New Yorker Films contend the ISU student group violated copyright law by offering "public performances" of the films, said Jonathan Howell of the company's non-theatrical releases department.

But the Cinema Society wasn't doing that, said Curt White, the group's faculty adviser. "The students' understanding was that they were providing an educational service," he said.

The film company "is trying to shake down the university," and get money, said White, an ISU English professor. "There's nothing immoral about what they were doing. Nobody was being charged to watch the movies."

Howell disagrees. Despite the students' interpretation, the law's on his company's side, he said. Copyright law allows only very few cases for public showings in its "face-to-face teaching exception," said Howell. The film must be shown as part of a school's official curriculum, and only to those students enrolled in the course, he said.

With Internet technology, New Yorker Films in recent years has begun to track its films' showings and whether licensing agreements have been secured.

"It seems like this is happening more and more," said Howell, noting the film company estimates it loses hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in similar situations, most often in university settings.

"It seemed so egregious after a point, we felt it was necessary to begin going after this," he said.

White believes the student group as well as the university unfairly are being targeted by the film company.

ISU officials don't believe the student group knowingly violated the copyright rules, said Groves. "But because there have been accusations, a hearing will be scheduled," through the student affairs student disciplinary process, he said.

The group could face suspension, he said.