BitTorrent Inherently Illegal?

Nohbdy001 asks: "Today I received a letter from my university's network administration advising me that my network access would be terminated due to 'illegal P2P activity.' The P2P activity that the e-mail cited was BitTorrent and the file being transferred was an update to the Azureus BitTorrent client. The letter stated, 'Until the courts decide that student P2P activity is permitted we will continue to block this activity on our network,' implying that BitTorrent is inherently illegal. It seems such misunderstandings are common, but it is particularly frustrating when coming from people in the IT field. How can a student respond to such an accusation in order to defend the validity of BitTorrent and continue to benefit from its legitimate uses?"

Comments

Letter to IT

[doublem]

Dear IT Department,

The "P2P" traffic you refer to consisted of me downloading updates to legal software. I will also use P2P technology to download Linux ISO's and other legal products.

I am not using P2P to download Movies, music or any other content unless the copyright owners have, as is the case with GPL software, explictly authorized unrestricted digital transfer.

You might as well ban FTP and HTTP traffic, as the materials I download can be legally acquired through those protocols as well.

You have not banned any illegal or debated downloads, only the download of software and content that all parties involved agree is legal to transfer.

Sincerely,

The student seeking a transfer to a more competently run University.

Re:Letter to IT

[flydude18]

A better letter to IT:

Dear IT Department,

I will discontinue using unauthorized P2P protocols on your network. I appologize if my usage of such protocols has caused any problem for your department of for the University.

From now on, I will only use allowed protocols, such as FTP and HTTP, to illegally download copyrighted material across your network.

Re:It's unfortunate

[IvanD]

He has the "ultimate platinum" subscription, and so.. he can read it, ask his lawyer and post before us (the normal/cheap people)

Re:It's unfortunate

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, if you don't get 'first post' with an "ultimate platinum" subscription then the editors will keep posting the story until you do.

Re:Talk to your Ombudsman!

[EnronHaliburton2004]

I always wondered what the Ombudsman does... I thought they sat around colleges saying "Ommm" and growing bud...

If I were an Evil Genius

[coyote4til7]

I'd find a key package that the IT Department relies on and convince/bribe/blackmail the maintainers to switch to torrent-only distibution. Ooops... no security patches for the registration system? Bet the IT Dept. would change the rules then.

If I were an Evil Genius ... hehehe ...

Re:Talk to your Ombudsman!

[Ohreally_factor]

Uh, right. And if you're going away for a few days, you call the Plant Deptartment to have someone come by and water your plants.

A professor emeritus? I dunno! That sounds crazy! Maybe it's a professor that emigrated? Let's check his Curriculum Vitae. Wait! What the hell is a Curriculum Vitae? Does it mean he matriculated with his syllabus?

Oh, by the way, when I wanted to pay for classes they told me to go the Registrar's Office, but since that's not a real word, I just left my tuition money in an envelope in the Financial Development office. Close enough, right?

If you're studying a particular subject, you're expected to learn the language of that subject.

If you join an academic institution, you should learn the language of academia and academic institutions. Why is this so hard?

If you don't like it, maybe you should attend a different place of higher learning, such as a barber college.