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Rosen, Valenti Warn Colleges About P2P
fini writes "The RIAA and MPAA just sent a letter to 2,300 colleges or so, asking to crack down on P2P. Juicy nugget: 'Not only is piracy of copyrighted works illegal, it can take up a significant percentage of a university's costly bandwidth.' Also mentioned, some quasi-FUD on security issues. Six higher-ed honchos also sent a concurring letter. From the RIAA website, here's the story and the letters (PDF only). Mentioned as examples of model policies: Drake University, UNC Chapel Hill and University of Michigan . Interestingly enough, there is no threatening 'or else' stuff in those letters. Not yet..."
Is this considered spam?
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Doesn't _every_ college that provides high-speed internet to students already know this!?
Sounds more like they are sending letters to colleges as a message to somebody else. Not the administrations, not the students, that's for sure.
Now back on point... many times before has the subject of P2P programs in school been posted. AND, in the comments were the several aproaches that the schools have made to combat them, from straight out blocking the ports, to throttling the ports, and to sending notices to the people using the most bandwidth. This allows students to continue to use the internet for recreation (to a point) while allowing usable speeds on port 80. If the RIAA wants to tell schools "Stop it!" then they should without comming out with all these excuses and reasons. Especialy if there are better ways of addressing them then cracking down on students.
Though she's as bad as the rest, Courtney Love had it right when she asked how much she, as an artist, would be getting in refunds due to RIAA awards against MP3.com and similar services. If her balance hasn't been positive due to these offensive attacks then we can only assume this is only about fat, bald bureaucrats at the RIAA. I'd love to proven wrong but...
The cost of which will no doubt, be charged as "operating expenses" to the webcasting royalties they are collecting, before the artists get a dime. The only thing the RIAA and their members are adept at is spending the artists money to guarantee that they never recoup.
...but little do Rosen, Valenti, and the rest of the Consumer Control Cartel know that most college students trade amoungst themselves. Such was the case at my school and my friend's school.
Before everyone goes off on P2P:
Right now there is a major server-side bandwidth shortage. It's expensive to run a major web site. There is a client-side bandwidth glut. It's cheap to browse the internet.
The server-side bandwidth cost means is very hard to host significant content for low cost, especially if you start to get popular. This hurts web content for everyone.
The solution? P2P-type networks. Move that client-side bandwidth over to the server side. Why should someone download a web page or file from a single server when they could download it from the last ten people who viewed that same page or file? Sending every web page you visit on to another person (or 5 people) does not incur a significant rise in the cost of you connection. Sending a web page to a million people a month from one server does.
And when P2P starts to open up the web for everyone, there are going to be a lot of people who are going to be pretty sorry that they were so narrow-minded that they made it easy for colleges, cable companies, and phone companies to restrict bandwidth for P2P networks just to save a few dollars.
Bandwidth which students deserve due to them paying absurdely ridiculous tuitions ranging from 15 - 30,000 dollars for a good university.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Our tech person actually said that don't care what we do as long as they don't get any letters about us from the RIAA/MPAA attack dogs. So I got the file sharing type stuff running but it is restricted to the college's domain.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
I tried submitting a story similar to this to /., but I kid you not -- we in the local LUG were threatened with ARREST for protesting when Hillary Rosen personally came to speak to praise us for our policies.
No one was for it after we were told that by one of the CS teachers, and the protest was dissolved.
It was just like when Bush went to Ohio State , except it was for a rich corporate billionaire, not just post 9/11 presidential security!
Oh please, its not a few students downloading MP3's hogging bandwidth from the rest who only use it to look up research articles.
It's EVERY STUDENT who's downloading MP3's. Thank god for that.
Fortunately, most college students are pro file-sharing. Since college students will shape the future, we can at least look forward to a less draconian future where everything isn't controlled by a few big paranoid information-nazi's like the MPAA and RIAA.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I'm at Cornell University right now, and interestingly enough, the administration has seemed to be doing the exact opposite, relaxing their guidelines.
The first week, we had take an online class where we learned that if we got caught sharing, we would have community service and stuff.
Then last week, they basically send an e-mail saying that they didn't care if we downloaded stuff, as long as we didn't upload stuff. I'm too lazy to go and check the e-mail, but I believe it gave directions on how to turn off uploads in KaZaA. Weird.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Juicy? It *can* take up a significant percentage of bandwidth. Bandwidth *is* costly. The copying of copyrighted works, according to current concensus, *is* illegal. Even if you don't agree with the illegality of it, how is the fact that the RIAA believes copying is illegal surprising or revealing?
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
College is where people are taught to turn off their minds and subscribe to politically-correct orthodoxy
Outside of college, I haven't found a whole lot of people who think, or really know the details of any orthodoxy. For the first time in my scholastic career, I had a history class that went beyond "We had a revolutionary war in 1776. We had a civil war in 1860. Abraham Lincoln was president. The good guys won both wars." and actually asked you to think about stuff. I've talked to people both on the far right and the far left and everywhere in between. Most people at high school didn't care enough to be right or left, beyond the "Republicans good; Democrats bad!" level. Yes, I've heard stories of political correctness being forced on people at universities, but it's not at every one, and even at those universities, you'll find an amazing diversity of opinion if you actually talk to the students and teachers.
"A journey of a thousand lawsuits begins with a single letter."
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
www.phynd.net is a great solution to P2P. I'm sure the RIAA and MPAA will hate it just as much as P2P, but both colleges and college students love it. Here at UConn, someone has kindly donated the use of their Linux box to run Phynd, which scours the network and catalogs all types of shared files (not just mp3/ogg or movies). In a college with thousands of on campus residents, this saves hunge amounts of internet bandwidth [money] by keeping file sharing traffic entirely on campus. The students are happy because there are almost never any dead links, and files transfer at full speed.
Before this was implemented, P2P programs tied up HUGE amounts of bandwitdth. UConn was forced to administer a bandwidth quota per student, but fortunately that's only for off campus traffic, not local traffic.
But the best thing about it is that the students solved the problem all by themselves. And UConn loves it because it's saving them vast amounts of money.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
I don't know about some of the Universities that some /.'ers attend, but I would like to give an account of how mine handles p2p stuff. For obvious reasons, I would like to keep the name of the school anonymous. I work for my school's computer department on Linux clustering and research oriented computing. I have been with the department for about 8 months (almost since I started school). One thing that I really like about my school is how our network admins handle p2p. We have no 'real' policy on it. Basically, we leave it up to the users to determine what is right and wrong. There is a reason for this. We consider our network resources to be 'public domain'. They are paid for, in part, by the university endowment, but mostly it is paid for by tax payer dollars.
Now, since the government of my state has not placed a ban on p2p networks of any type, we are in no position to deny our users the right to use them. We are, however, allowed to throttle their traffic so that more of our bandwidth goes to university-related causes. Really, our department tries as much as possible to turn a blind eye to the p2p situation. We don't want to impede on our students abilities to use the internet in the way they see fit. The university will not, however, back a student who has been busted by the RIAA for illegally possessing copyrighted material.
Simple solution:
Cap all outgoing traffic from the dormitory networks, regardless of port or protocol. This would drastically cut down on out-of-campus users downloading from servers in the dorms (the largest part of the problem), while leaving non-dorm machines (cluster workstations, research labs, office computers, et al) untouched.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
If my university prohibited Napster, as some othes Scandinavian schools did, the collection would probably have never started.
Worse than that, I would never know first-hand what P2P is. This is about academic freedom: you should be allowed to test whatever darn new thing is out there, for whatever reason, otherwise the school lags behind. What you use it for, is your responsibility, of course.
Oh yes, I'm first-hand aware of the associated headaches (cleaning up the lab computers from those pesky money-generating add-ons that pop up an ad at the timing-critical phase of your data acquisition :-).
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
Deep down, the RIAA knows that it has absolutely no hope of forcing this upon universities, which is why these letters are absent any cease and desist language. They're just going to run it up the flagpole and see who looks.
The final word should be here that it is the job of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to enforce Federal law. No other entity, whether state or local, has the jurisdiction nor obligation to enforce the CFR. If distributing copyrighted material is a federal crime, then it's the justice deparment, and no one else, who has the power to indict. Civilly, I find it hard to believe that the RIAA would be able to prove that distributing a song cost them any money. What downloader is going to take the stand and testify that he/she would have bought the CD had they not been able to download it? I sure wouldn't. In fact, I would testify that the ability to "try before you buy" has led to my purchasing several CDs that I normally would not have even known about, let alone bought.
Every single Borders bookstore allows you to listen to a CD, in CD quality, and in its entirety, without any inhibitions, before you buy it. Does that not constitute illegal distribution, i.e. allowing someone to listed to copyrighted music without paying? Why isn't Borders being served? How is this different than P2P, save the portability of the music?
Colleges shape the way generations think. If they simply sit back and allow millions of students get accostomed to d/ling MP3s, then they have an uphill battle to fight later. They are scared to death of a new generation thinking there is nothing wrong with this.
Most of us here on the boards fit in the 20 to 50 year old category. We at least remember what it was like to have to *buy* a cd! Think about the impact of those below us who will grow up in a culture where, if you want an album, you download it and burn it yourself.
From the RIAA's point of view, it's easier to send a watered down "cease and desist" letter rather than rethinking ways to relate to this new demographic.
The whole situation reminds me of when electrical grids were just being set up, however metering was not widespread and the available meters crude.
Eventually when the technology improves, the system will have to move to a "pay what you weigh" billing scheme just like all of our other utilities.
I mean, let's face it. Internet access is becoming a utility, just like electricity, water gas, etc. Why then should it not be billed by the gallon, kW or whatever just like any other utility?
I know it sounds aweful to the all-you-can-eat salad bar culture, but it's probably inevitable.
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
I worked for a couple networking depts on campus during my undergraduate "career" at UNC, among which was ResNet. I've learned a _ton_ during my years at UNC, and I continue to learn at work and in external studying. I worked with some truly great people in ATN and computer science, namely my bosses in ResNet and the security folks.
Early in my college stint, one of my Red Hat machines was hacked literally minutes after I ifup'ed eth0. Needless to say, I took an immense amount of heat because that computer was subsequently used as a waypoint to launch a DoS. What a turning point. Those who've interacted with me since have known me to be extremely critical of standard security procedures at universities; I've been very outspoken in pushing the use of strict ssh2, strong passwords, forced password expiration, keeping current with application and service updates, reading and generally being security-conscious, and other what I consider security essentials from an administrator's viewpoint. I say this because most students don't care about the difference between ssh2 and telnet; they just want to check their email and download mp3s.
Which brings me to my second point. During my junior year, I was part of one of the first large OpenNap networks. Although the particular server I operated had the enable_share parameter disabled, the nature of the network setup allowed information transfer over the entire network and thus anyone--even on a host with sharing disabled, like mine--could retrieve search results for a song search. The RIAA wasn't too happy (I don't doubt this was discovered through napigator), and in the end I had to sign a number of documents promising I would never infringe copyrights again, use excessive network resources, etc. This is despite the fact that I was operating a completely legal OpenNap server--my boss at ResNet affirmed that I wasn't sharing.
What this goes to show is that universities with _competent_ security and copyright-aware folks will throw up a safety net for you _if you're doing the right thing_. The EULA for ResNet at UNC and various links already cited in the posting above make explicit the methodology of dealing with suspected copyright violation. While I wasn't happy at the time, I have to acknowledge that UNC gave me a lot of support for which I'm grateful. The basic point is "don't do any stupid, and you won't regret it." If however, the RIAA decides to chase you down as they did me, as long as you're within your proper use, you should be ok.
I've heard separate stories about mistreatments on separate protests, but those are unfortunately not things for which I can vouch.
When I went to college the really high-tech people were running 1200 baud dial-up to BBSes.
Ahh, for a Commodore 64, a 1670 modem, and nibbleterm. Those were the days, my friends. Now every college weenie has KaZaA and thinks they're hot stuff. I don't think I paid for any software ever for the C-64, and most of it was swiped at 300 baud or at file sharing parties - we called them GT's (Get Togethers). I don't think I got the 1671 until 1986.
And we used to Phreak MCI and Sprint by hand.
Of course there was the day that the FBI came knocking at my door...
Music sharing? Albums recorded to cassette tape.
Kids today just don't get the finer points of stealing. It's all about instant gratification now. I say, cut the cord and take away their high-speed internet. Let 'em P2P at 300 baud over POTS like we use to.
A friend of mine is a professor at Lewis and Clark college in Portland, OR, and he tells me that they purposefully do not block P2P of any kind. They consider this sort of a student recruitment tool. It does tend to clog their network on Friday and Saturday evenings when students are busy downloading MP3s and pr0n, but their response to the issue is to add more bandwidth to the Internet.
As far as they're concerned, it's one of the costs of doing business as a college these days.
I work tech support for a small midwestern liberal arts college. We've got a 6 megabit outgoing. We had the subnets for KaZaa, WinMX, etc blocked. The first week of classes the connection was great. Then word got out that Morpheus was still working. Within a day the outgoing had slowed to a crawl. I like p2p as much as the next Slashbot but darn it, the network can't take that kind of abuse. We continue to allow LAN file sharing and AIM file transfers because they don't suck bandwidth, but the major p2p apps are just too wasteful...
~Chazzf
No statement is true, not even this one.
It sure prob. is copyrighted!....and NO THERE ISN'T PLENTY OF PUBLIC DOMAIN STUFF....
Even if you are getting that music off a defunct "K-Tell" record from "Disco-77" you bet it's copyrighted....and Jack still says you gotta pay "K-Tell" for the right to use it....even if K-Tell isn't around anymore, you gotta pay him and his cousin Vinny.
Think it's hard now....think down the DRM road where the access is controlled "per-play" rather than "I have the album"....as soon as the consumer looses the right to "hold the album/rights to listen".....it's all over....
Think about it, that's where EULA's have been going with "revokable liscense agreements" and the rest of it. You no longer have the ability to keep using something that you bought, even if you still have the media.....time expired!
Outside of college, I haven't found a whole lot of people who think, or really know the details of any orthodoxy.
Um, I live in a college town. I burst out with a guffaw every time I hear someone make a connection between being a college student, and thinking or being intelligent. I can't help it.
Just make sure I don't have a mouthful of soda if you're going to say something like that :)