An e-mail sent to all members of the University community earlier this month warned that any violations of copyright laws through file sharing online would be met with the strictest of consequences.
Online file sharing through application programs like Kazaa and Soulseek have been a persistent problem among many college campuses, and the University is attempting to decrease the number of copyright violators by temporarily shutting down anyone who is caught using an excessive amount of bandwidth that slows down network traffic for other users.
“We care about file sharing for two reasons,” said Gregory Jackson, vice president and chief information officer of the University. “One is particularly if you’re redistributing files, that’s clearly illegal. The other way that file sharing is a problem is if someone is moving a huge volume of data over the network, that can easily interfere with whether someone else has access to the network.”
The University will only pursue violations if administrators notice an abnormal amount of bandwidth being used, if Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) files a complaint, or a film production company states that the network has someone who is violating the law and recommends the University put a stop to it.
First-time offenders are temporarily unplugged from the system, and must speak with a dean. Second-time offenders are permanently removed from the system, eliminating CNet ID use and e-mail accounts. Although it is very difficult to function without access to the network, this does not imply expulsion.
“What we’ll do is we will notice someone who is using a huge amount of bandwidth, and what we can do is see what kind of traffic it is,” Jackson said. “We look to see what the traffic is, and if it’s all associated with the part that’s file sharing, then the next thing we do is see if they’re running a server that distributes music. If that’s the case, then the plug gets pulled, and someone’s talking to the dean.”
Jackson commented that this year there have been very few negative responses to the advisory e-mail that was sent out.
“Network security and administration has worked out a very reasonable system for dealing with problems,” said Nick Dahmann, a first-year in the College who was taken off the system for redistributing files that he did not realize were being redistributed. “The problem is a real one and should be taken seriously by other students. The school can get sued for a lot of money and lose its government funding.”
Dahmann’s computer had been hacked into, and the files he had been downloaded were stolen and then redistributed. Rather than be upset with being shut down, he was pleased to have been informed that he had been hacked into, so he could prevent this in the future.
File sharing includes downloading of any application, whether it be music, movies, or otherwise, and redistribution of these files to others through online application programs. Excessive use of these programs can consume a significant amount of the University’s resources, and can then affect the rate of Internet traffic for everyone that is on the University’s network. The issue concerns both copyright law as well as the University’s own strict guidelines, which are outlined in the Eligibility and Acceptable Use Policy.
“The broad policy of the University is that anything that is a University resource, meaning it’s owned by the University or provided by the University, is intended to be used for academic purposes,” Jackson said. “You can’t use University resources to break the law, you can’t use University resources for certain types of political activity, and you can’t use University resources for private commercial gain.”
There is a great deal of ambiguity surrounding copyright violations. Even the simple and common act of downloading a single piece of music without a license is technically illegal, but such small usage usually does not merit legal action. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998, sets the current status quo.
The mass redistribution of any file is clearly outlined as being illegal and can often result in legal action. When a file sharing program is downloaded, the user then has the ability to provide files to as many other users as he wishes. Some users do this without realizing it, because the program automatically redistributes their files to others. This redistribution by default can usually be turned off.
The University is primarily concerned with those who are redistributing, as opposed to those who just receive, and those who use a significant amount of bandwidth that would harm others’ use of the University network. The University, under the DMCA, is legally bound to take certain actions if a student is caught redistributing files.
Record companies and film industries pay attention to universities because high-speed Internet connections are readily available on most college campuses, making file sharing fast and convenient.
There have been 30 cases this year in which an individual’s network connection has been turned off because he or she was using too much bandwidth and had interfered with other users’ ability to use the server. According to Jackson, this is not a significant increase of violations from previous years, and the administration sends letters each year to warn students about the dangers of file sharing. The only difference, Jackson noted, is that students now share more movies, which take up significantly more bandwidth than music files.
“Movies tend to be huge files, so they’re much more likely to eat up network capacity, and the movie makers are much more diligent about looking for these problems and complaining to us about them.” Jackson said.
Although the RIAA has been fairly active in stopping piracy on college campuses, the University’s policy remains that while it will stop whoever is violating the copyright law, it will not release the names of those individuals to the RIAA or any other industry.
“We consider who is on the network to be a student record, and it takes fairly serious legal documents to get a student’s record out of us,” Jackson said. The industry just tells the University whom they know to be causing problems, and then lets the school handle the matter. So far none of the cases that have ever arisen from copyright violations have ever been so serious as to require such measures.
Students can take several steps to prevent themselves from being shut down, like making sure they are not redistributing by default, but the most effective method is still not to share files at all.
Shortly after the administration sent the e-mail, violations dropped significantly, but the University does not expect that this trend will continue, and copyright violations are expected to continue to occur at the same rate as usual. While there is still much argument over whether the copyright laws need to be adjusted, the laws as they stand are explicit and clear. Although many question the current copyright law, and many more, including Jackson himself, question the moral education of trading intellectual property, the university is required to obey the current laws.
