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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?"
I don't have any advice in particular. It's unfortunate because this really amounts to censorship and stifling academic freedom. Who's to say that the content you're accessing with a network tool - say, even a web browser - is appropriate? Sure, you can say that downloading pirated software or movies is inappropriate, but, in my opinion, academic institutions should have as hands-off an approach as possible. Illegal content can be accessed via the web, or email. Most would say it's absurd to suggest blocking port 80, or port 25. Why? Why is that any more absurd than blocking something such as BitTorrent, especially as BitTorrent's legitimate applications are increasing?
During the heyday of Napster, the University of Wisconsin - Madison had a difficult decision. As it watched the traffic for Napster consume over 70% of total inbound bandwidth at its peak, we asked ourselves: do we start blocking Napster? After all, it's mostly used for stealing music. Right?
Fortunately, the answer was a resounding "No," but not because we condoned illegally downloading copyrighted material. It was because the university didn't want to become de facto censors of information, in any form it may come. We decided that things like Napster were part of the cost of doing business as a major public research university. The solution was to add bandwidth, and deal with the technical aspects of the problem separate from any social aspects that may exist.
Granted, some smaller institutions might not have been able to afford - economically or legally - to take this stance. But the University of Wisconsin felt it important enough to allow academic freedom and freedom of exchange of information to trump any other potential concerns, real or imagined.
The university does respond on an individual basis to people clearly running warez servers, owned machines used for warez, specific C&D orders or other notices from copyright holders, etc., but we don't take a proactive approach. In fact, ironically, a proactive approach could be more dangerous, because it may mean that safe harbor provisions of some elements of copyright law (e.g. DMCA) won't apply: an ISP can't be held responsible for things it doesn't know about.
There is already legal precedent that P2P file sharing technology in itself is indeed legal. The Federal Appeals court that ruled was talking about networks like Morpheus and Grokster, but I would think the precedent set also applies to Bittorrent.
Here's a quote from a news story back in August:
"History has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine, or an MP3 player," Thomas wrote. "Thus, it is prudent for courts to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories for the purpose of addressing specific market abuses, despite their apparent present magnitude."
Make sure you do not have any "warez" stored on you computer.
My college does the same damn thing. I can't even do wnload from bittorrent. But my school is also using a stateful firewall, and a lot of those P2P programs break behind a firewall.
On another note, anyone know a way around that?
Did you send a reply back stating, or better yet actually showing, legitimate uses? Game patches, legal multimedia distribution (Red vs. Blue for example), and so forth...
Ask them what you were doing that was possibly illegal. If they can not name any possible source of infringment, you might be able to do something. As for all file sharing being illegal, point out to them that a webserver (such as the universities webserver) along with google does essentially the same thing.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Although a P2P application may not be illegal, the department providing your computing services has decided they don't want to allow you to use a P2P application on their network.
Although their reasoning may be questioned - it is their network, and you are probably going to just have to put up with it.
Dave Bell
Still, it's probably worth a polite note to the network administrator to request "clarification". State your case concisely (they're usually busy) and politely, and you may get lucky.
Check out my eclectic infosec blog at InfoSecPotpou
Your best bet would surely be to explain it's role in reducing the load on servers, however the university probably has no interest in that given that it only results in them having to put up with more traffic...
Only a terrorist would be against Linux!
My digital rights don't need management.
Sorry, it's their network, and you signed up to use it. You have to play by their rules. In a university setting, the goal should be to promote academic research, and unless administrators see BitTorrent as helping (I don't know whether it does or not), they will probably regulate it. If you have a legitimate academic need for the client, it might be allowed. You'd also probably be surprised about how much p2p traffic there is (music/movies) on campuses, and what kind of cost this incurs on the university.
Okay, first the good news. Proving that it's not illegal is relatively simple. If something isn't explicitly rendered illegal by an act of law, it's legal. Ask them to point out the law that states (and here's the key point) that use of this particular protocol is illegal for distribution of freeware that is also available for unfettered download via the web. They obviously won't be able to...problem solved?
Not exactly. This isn't just a matter of legal versus not legal, it's a question of whether it complies with their own Acceptable Use Policies. And depending on how those policies are written, Bittorrent may be a no-no anyways, "Because we say so." And I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that when they say "illegal," they don't mean 'criminal,' they mean 'against our own policies.' Good luck to you, man (or woman, whichever).
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Keep in mind that your definition of "legitimate use" may be quite different from theirs. University IT departments tend not to consider anything to be "legitimate" unless it has a valid academic application. Do you know of any academic uses for BitTorrent? Not trying to rain on your parade, but "I need it to download X" probably won't cut much ice.
I would suggest getting a copy of the Acceptible Use Policy and any network related documents. Being familar with your University's policies can come in handy when dealing with the IT staff. Also, is it absolutely necessary to use Bit Torrent? I know it's a good thing (I use it myself to download Linspire) but the ratio of legitimate / illegitimate ussage is probably tilted pretty far one way.
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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.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Open-Source software is not only evil, but infringes on copyrights and patents ;)
It's their network. If they dont want you using BT, then dont use BT.
However, I'd send a letter back. State that while illegal files can and are downloaded using BitTorrent, you were just using it for legal purposes. There is no laws governing protocols at this time (as far as if they can or cannot be used).
Also put something in there like "However I do respect that this is your network and will abide by the rules. I apologize for any issues I might have caused."
But that's my 30something mind working.
= Grow a brain...
Unfortunately the university network is a private network, and they can set nearly any policy they like. If that policy is that no applications that have explicitly been ruled legal are allowed, they can do that.
In my opinion the best you can do is to to publicise the fact in your school and/or community papers. It might help if you got it in writing that the school has a policy of banning all new applications till courts rule that they are legal. It ought to warn prospective students that far from encouraging creativity, the school has a policy of stifling it, and they ought to stay away.
and I can tell you that the larger issue is the amount of bandwidth used by students. Universities pay by the bit and budgets are tight. The network has two purposes: first, it is there to help with your education. second, it is a recruiting tool - nobody would want to attend a school without network access.
But beyond that, it's an expensive utility and the school really can't afford to open it up 100%. So, they are always looking for some way to justify restricting its use. It's sad that they have basically called you a theif, but don't take it personally. They're just trying to save money. It's wrong and it sucks for you, but that's the bottom line.
Don't worry. college is only four years, and then you can get a good job and a real internet connection. For now, just concentrate on beer and girls
and grades of course.
Mandrake Linux uses BitTorrent as it's main method for downloading for Mandrake Club members. To quote them directly from http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/club/ "Early and privileged access is provided, before public release, to ISO images of the latest Mandrakelinux, using the fast BitTorrent technology." However I sould strongly suggest being able to substantiate the legal use before you start a discussion with your University.
- Paul
It's getting to the point where it's hard to run open source software without using bittorrent.
I'm not saying it's impossible (that would clearly be overstating things) but more and more things are being distributed via torrents.
I think the reaction should be that you know they have a problem (traffic and piracy on their network), but that you have a problem (there is stuff that's legal that you need torrents to get), and see if you can come to a reasonable solution.
I would try to emphasize the direction of the trend, too. A couple of years ago, bittorrent didn't factor into downloading linux iso's very much at all. Now I think it's clearly the best way to get most things, although more traditional downloads are still available. But eventually, I wouldn't be surprised if people without torrent access have real trouble getting large legal files.
If your school doesn't want to hamstring its students' ability to participate in open source, they'll have to open up to torrents.
I went to a small school and got them to ease back on the bandwidth restrictions for Bit Torrent because I was doing my senior seminar paper on the program.
Getting a professor to talk to the Network Admin about the legal uses. If you can convince a professor to use it in a class you might actually stand a chance.
Citoahc
The quote from the letter shows that the university is clearly blowing smoke and either did not talk to their legal department, or if they did, they ought to fire their lawyers. Although you sometimes have to wonder about the sanity of the US legal system, there is still a basic principle that something is legal unless it is determined to be illegal. Therefore, courts do not have to rule P2P activity as legal before you can engage in that activity. Even pending litigations do not constitute that P2P activity is currently illegal (unless you break the law using the P2P stuff).
Also, it is very unlikely that any court would rule specifically on student P2P activity. Students are strange animals, but in general rulings like this would apply to everyone, not just to students.
They are obviously playing on threatening people, and hiding behind vague statements in an effort to simply avoid the entire risk of people potentially using P2P technology to download (or upload) illegal materials. I'd personally recommand replying back to the university, explaining your legal use of P2P, and explaining that their letter seems to be based on some flawed assumptions, both legally and factually.
But do not expect to win unless you really want to fight this desperately. It's their network and though you pay tuition and all that, it is still their network, and so they get to decide what goes, whether it makes sense or not.
I got a note in my box from the (local western Pennsylvania) LUG, which describes a talk from a state trooper who said that wardriving was illegal. After years of debunking, talking nicely to less-informed journalists, and even having an FBI agents on video say otherwise, there is still a lack of understanding.
I heard at my last contract that they didn't use SSH because it was "inherently insecure." They used telnet instead.
Best thing to do, is be patient, try to educate the uninformed, and convince others to do the same.
Just don't get too angry, or they won't want to listen to you in the first place.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Get MS to use bittorrent to assist in distrobution of patches through the windows update system. Garunteed within 30 days there would be a federal law that makes blocking bit torrent a crime.
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.
No, they are not implying that BitTorrent is inherently illegal. They are stating that they think BitTorrent *may* be used for illegal activities and they don't want to regulate BitTorrent traffic on their network, and are erroring on the side of caution.
Like it or not, it is the University's network, and they administer it as they see fit. Don't like it? Tough. Use another network.
If the MPAA finds a bunch of students pirating movies on the University network, the University will be held responsible at some level. It could become a massive headache for the Network admins, which is why they are taking this move.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
An insight into our tax dollars and tuition at work.
"During the heyday of Napster, the University of Wisconsin - Madison had a difficult decision. As it watched the traffic for Napster consume over 70% of total inbound bandwidth at its peak, we asked ourselves: do we start blocking Napster? After all, it's mostly used for stealing music. Right?"
What the administrators *should* have done is an analysis on that traffic, and examined what exactly it was being used for. If 70% of your bandwidth in one direction is being smoked because of non-essential traffic, in any business, you stop that traffic...period. It doesn't matter whether the traffic is legal or illegal. If it could cause others to not be able to get their jobs (or in this case their bonafide homework) done, then you put an end to it.
I'd say they didn't think too hard about this one...nor do I think this applies to the original post at all. Napster was used for downloading music...that's it...that was always illegal.
Bittorrent is used for downloading all kinds of content...basically anything you want to create a torrent for...whether that be CD images of legit software (Linux), software updates like someone alluded to for gaming, or anything else. It can get used for legit as well as non-legit purposes. However, Napster was pretty much illegal, whether anyone wanted to admit it or not. I'm not passing judgment on anyone who used it...hell, I used it. But I KNEW it was illegal, and I still did it. It was used for nothing but *sharing* music...not distributing software updates. Bittorrent can't even be compared to Napster...it's completely different, and it's uses are endless.
My overall gist? Napster has nothing to do with academics, so your analogy is laughable at best...it's about increasing your music library for free. Bittorrent IS about freedom. It gives you a way of getting and distributing any type of content (legal or otherwise) by using the rest of the world's bandwidth if they so desire.
Hmmm... let's see, they accuse you of illegal activity... so that would be slander.
Second, they penalize you for taking part in a perfectly legal exchange of data. It could be a First Amendment issue. But that's only if your university is state-run.
Give your local chapter of the ACLU a call and see what they think. You never know, they may be interested in representing you.
Many univeristies have an Ombudsman, whose job it is to talk advocate for those trapped in meaningless rules which do not or should not apply.
While not the most popular approach among Slashdoters, I highly recommend talking with your student government. Having served in one for way to long, I can tell you that most of them are just waiting for the perfect issue to come by to fight the Administration on. Network censorship is an easy issue to understand and they are obviously overreaching in their interpretations of "the Law."
The other important question is whether this is a state or private school. One poster said you had no recourse because it was "their network"... but such is not the case is if this is a state school. There may be certain laws that protect fair access. Again your student government can be a valuable source of information in this area.
-Sean
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
Hey its their network, they make the rules..
If tomrrow they decide that slashot isnt allowed, then you lose access..
You signed the agreement. Thats the breaks..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If what you were downloading was something you had authorization to copy anyways, then you weren't infringing on copyright. Period.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Indeed. And I'll add, "their network, their rules".
But it can be challenged. Are you paying for net access? Is it included in the cost of whatever it is they charge you for your education?
Read their TOS. Find legal precedent where it says that p2p is not illegal. Collect signatures. Petition, campaign, etc.
Sounds like too much work? If you are not up to it then I advise you to get another ISP (and read the TOS before you sign).
If you decide to "walk around" their filters (tunneling, etc), don't complain later on if they somehow bust you. If you decide to simply ignore their warning and BT files anyway, notify them of your reasons for this. In writing. This way you get an air of legitimacy.
WARNING: The above is not legal advice and I'm not a lawyer. Talk to a lawyer and be prepared to walk into whatever situation you choose with your eyes wide open. You might not be doing anything illegal, but that's never stopped anybody from suing anyway.
No sig
Send them a message asking when they'd like to meet with your lawyer to discuss their fraudulent accusations of illegal activity.
Seeing as they don't have any evidence of such behavior, that ought to remind them that going around accusing people of committing illegal acts sans proof isn't kosher. Suspending an account because of violation of the TOS is one thing, but suspending it with an accusation of criminal behavior is a whole 'nother.
When I was doing my undergrad, I was on a judical board. Any student who felt they were unduly punished could appeal their punishment to a judicial board for decision. This kept administrators from running amok handing out nonsense punishments out of ignorance/laziness/malice.
Our school even had a group of prelaw/political science majors that were certified by the school as "advocates" and could present your case for you. Check with your student government association and find out if such an option would be available to you. This may not solve the problem outright, but it would give you an opportunity to state the facts.
You can't argue with ignorance, but you can go on the record with the facts.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
This slashdot post showed some sites using BitTorrent legally e.g. CommonBits, LegalTorrents et al.
Universities are now run by "System CEOs" who are much more concerned with the financial and social stability of their empire than the freedom of information for what they see is a group of drunken kids looking to fill their hard drives and iPods with free music and porn. The freedoms of those lowly students to be innocent until proven guilty of stepping on the toes of their school CEO's financial buddies are the last things on the minds of the administrative staff. They want that cold hard Alumni cash and some big beefy corporate donations to rename their football fields with.
All your stadium are belong to T. Boone Pickens, yo!
IMHO, of course.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
a network administrator at a small private girls' school,
I want your job.
Only informed people can properly react to such a troublesome statement, on a universety they should understand this...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
The file you have is legal and legally distributed. Period. If they wish to limit your free speech rights on legal speech, that is a first ammendment issue and should be dealt with in a separate court battle.
If you can find a lawyer to write a letter to that effect for you, it might get their attention. I'm sure you could find a classmate whose parent relative or family friend is a lawyer willing to put a note like that under his/her firm's name. No explict threats -- just a letter from a lawyer.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
That a man caugth his wife cheating him with his best friend on the sofa. What he did? He trow away the sofa.
And that is what most IT departments do... It doesnt matter what kind of protocol you use to share your data. If there people out there that want to share, they'll find a way to do so.
What if some one devellop a p2p software based on HTTP? Should we block it too? There is Peer2Mail, lets ban SMTP, POP and IMAP altogheter!! Better yet, lets get rid of TCP/IP as it is cleary the foundation of those evil sharing technologies.
How about add value to your products, so people will actually want to buy them? Do you think people are stopping to buy CDs because piracy, or online sharing?!? No, its because the lack of quality, and the abusive pricing!! No one will buy for an entire CD when they just want one song or two...
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
A separate issue that you haven't addressed is what other material you've downloaded using BitTorrent. Some people only use it for legally downloadable material like open software ISOs and trade-friendly music like the etree.org stuff (I certainly do; there's way too much stuff I like there to have time for piracy), while other people trade warez and pirated music. If you're one of the latter, please slap yourself on the wrist, clean the stuff off your PC, and be *very* careful when you talk to the university admins. If you're one of the former, you're in a much stronger legal position. There can be a big difference between what legitimate uses you *could* use BT for and what you're actually doing with it.
Illegal downloading is potentially legally dangerous to the university, whether it's done with BT or FTP-over-carrier-pigeon. If they're saying that the *issue* is dangerous to *you*, that sounds to me like a threat, and you really need to talk to your ombudsperson.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Time for a feature modification for Bittorrent. Switch to port 443, SSL. (STunnel source is open.)
They can't even tell what you are doing if this is done. If they can't tell, they cannot be dumb azzes about it.
Put the trackers on HTTPS also. Allow self signed certs.
Of course, self signed certs are illegal in some countrys, but not the USA. So it would have to be optional.
They won't call the cops -- they'll just shutoff your network connection for violating the AUP (most AUPs are written so generally they can easily be applied to kick people off if they want). And then what are you going to do?
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
The Acceptable Use Policy at my college didn't have anything that states that use of the network for downloading using bittorrent specifically for legal purposes weren't allowed, even though they have the ports for that specific protocol, along with kazaa, morpheus, etc., throttled so low that no one uses them. However, they'd probably counter anything with this one bullet that include actions that are prohibited in the AUP:
"Use of the College's technical resources in a manner that causes degradation, incapacitates, compromises, or in anyway jeopardizes the teaching, learning and business missions of the College for students, faculty, and administration."
So, you could be "chewing up bandwidth" downloading some linux iso's, which compromises the available bandwidth for someone who is trying to access their online classroom.
CowsAnonymous: We're here to help moo.
I was using IRC on an university account, and was contacted by them to stop using the service. I explained I was using the IRC for research and would remove it immediately if it was causing a problem, and received an email from the sys admin thanking me for my honesty, and telling me I could contintue using it.
They did not say that this student was a criminal or what they were doing was criminal. What they said was that, until P2P networks are ruled to be legal by the courts, they would not allow them on campus. That isn't saying that a P2P network is illegal, or that the student's use of it is illegal. It is simply saying that, barring a court ruling that affirms their legality, they aren't going to permit them at all.
Furthermore, there can be no libel or slander here because this is a private communication between the school and the student. Slander or libel is saying or printing something that is knowingly false about the student for others to see. It's a matter of damaging somebody's reputation. If the school and the student are the only ones privee to the communication, how can their reputation be damaged.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Our courts will never declare P2P use legal. It's not what they do. The legal system in this country is designed around the idea that things are legal and people are innocent until laws make it illegal or you are found guilty. You are allowed to have and use bitorrent under US law. It's a first amendment right. You are not allowed to share copyrighted works however. By way of analogy it's like having a printing press. It's ok to print your own work, or works you are contracted to print by the creator, or works in the public domain: as long as you dont start printing copies of things like The Lord of The Rings (which did, in fact, happen and resulted in legal fights and too many editions wandering around). You can share free software and your own works with the tool. So you have some recourse. And you might want to investigate whatever student and academic tribunals that you have at your disposal. This is a right worth protecting. I should mention that IANAL, but I do follow this closely as I did have articles censored in my High School paper, as well as other students at that school. So this is an issue near and dear to my heart. There are things to condsider... Is this a private or state run school? That may make a difference if this ever has to go to court. Usually the courts have taken the position that the school is publisher in student censorship cases and so has a right to edit the content of what they publish. So they might have the final right to say no to all P2P sharing on their network as it is "their" bandwidth. However, you have not committed a crime, right? And you might want to be careful on that count, it would be embarrassing to go before a student/faculty review board and claim you only use it for legit purposes...and then have them show that you spent 2 weeks downlaoding the entire series of Porky's movies. So, be careful. Or build your arguments carefully. You might want to contact the EFF or the ACLU, they both deal with this kind of thing. Finally, I expect your best course of action is to try to protect your rights at the academic level. Get an academic review board together and present your case that the tool and the file quoted are not illegal, and show the license that allows you to share the file. Allow the IT deparment to make their case that they have limited bandwidth and dont have time to determine which files are legal and which are not. Demonstrate that you are a responsible citizen, not a wily and witless media bandit and try to paint the IT dept's policy as draconian and possibly a violation of civil rights. Let the students and faculty decide and they will set policy for the school. Then you will know what kind of school you really go to. Or...host your files off-campus. ---Gorehog
I assume you live on campus. I recommend you take your case to Housing, the Dean of Students, or someone else in Student Affairs. We're generally much more sympathetic and student friendly (it's our job). We're professional student advocates who should be able to help you navigate the processes and translate the language of the higher education bureaucracy.
In particular, if you can make your case to Housing you may be in a stronger position as we are typically a self-sufficient or lightly subsidized auxiliary service and dependent on your rent for our budget. Unhappy residents makes our lives more difficult and if it impacts the bottom line strongly enough it may make our jobs nonexistent. But more than that: most of us are in this profession to understand your concerns and help you convey them to the right people. It's part of the educational process. We honestly believe (and have the research to support) a huge amount of important educational and learning experiences occur outside of the classroom and labratory. This is one of those experiences.
IMHO, there should be a healthy tension between the Housing dept and the IT dept regarding the policies and use of the residential computer network. There is an inherent tension between needing to protect the network and keeping it open for legitimate academic and recreational uses. Unfortunately, it's usually the residents who get caught in the middle between these opposing viewpoints.
I've been involved in similar "fights" and discussions. There's no easy answer particularly in areas where bandwidth is expensive and public support for higher education is declining (i.e. nearly everywhere). And ultimately my responsibility is to all of the residents not just one or two of them. If that means I have to deny access to an application, port, etc. to a few residents to ensure the rest of them can use the network then I'll do that or recommend our network engineers do that. It's a poor solution and I wish we didn't have to do it but sometimes we have to make compromises. We can't afford (more realistically: YOU can't afford) to buy the bandwidth necessary to satisfy all of the academic and entertainment needs of all of the residents.
Best of luck! I hope your campus administration makes the right decision (whatever that is) and you learn something (hopefully positive) from this process. If it helps, I am dismayed by the situation as you have described it and would do my best not to allow a similar situation on my campus.
Last I checked, "IT" wasn't a major.
My alma mater offers a Ph.D. in Information Technology
http://ite.gmu.edu/PhDprogr/main.html
It amazes me how many people start their reply with words to the effect of "they have accused you of doing something illegal, this is slander, sue them!" when in fact the parts of the letter that have been posted do no such thing.
Its also funny how many people say "they can't do that!" when the university owns the network in question, which means yes they can. There is no gray area, and there is ample court ruling to back that up.
Considering the legal consequences the school can face from the **AA crushing machine, I can't fault them for taking this stance. I think its unfortunate, and to an extent unfair, but they really don't have a lot of choices.
But then this is Slashdot. We never let a little thing like facts get in the way. Just like this post will probably get modded to "troll" because we also don't like it when simple truths are pointed out.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Students and faculty need to let their IT departments know what they legitimate purposes they have for using P2P applications.
At Oregon State University, we ran into a huge problem with P2P sharing, in terms of bandwidth. One fall when the students came back, we were "in the straights" for several days - we were saturating our link to the commodotity Internet.
We discussed not allowing P2P on campus, but we learned from a few folks who were using it for legitimate research sharing purposes, and decided intead to use a packet-shaper and set a lower priority on P2P traffic. Additionally, our Housing group enforces pretty strict bandwidth limits (http://oregonstate.edu/resnet/policies.php). So far, this approach has been working great for us.
We do, of course, receive DMCA complaints on a regular basis (about 1-2/week for a University with 18,000 students - not bad, I think). When we get these complaints, we contact the person who owns the machine or webpage, find out if the file was really copywritten material, and make them take it down. Occassionally, we have gotten false reports from RIAA or MPAA, so we try not to assume that the files are being illegally shared.
Because sometimes even if the copies are unauthorized, they can be legal, thanks to Fair Use. Unauthorized != illegal.
And that's not even something that will ever be figured out by a computer, even if they have a fingerprint of every copyrighted work in existance. Because sometimes you have the right to copy information, copyright be damned, and when that is can only be decided by the courts.
So it's not just 'things you have legit permission to download' blocking stops, it's also 'things you have a right under the law to download even though you don't have permission'.
So even if there was a magical bittorrent filter that stopped you from downloading Star Wars but let you download a Linux ISO, it can't ever be smart enough to know you're downloading Star Wars because you want a four second clip of Greedo shooting first to go along with your dissertation on 'How the Digital Universe Allows Anyone to Edit History', and thus you're squarely in the Fair Use camp.
(No, you can't grab it off the DVD, thanks to the DMCA, which outlawed the tools in addition to using them. So you could legally rip it, but not legally possess any tools to do so.)
And before anyone says 'That's an absurd situation', I'll point that Fair Use covers a lot of things...you could even argue it covered, to get back my original example, downloading a no-longer-manufactured original vinyl rip to go along with your purchase of a CD, because it's for personal, non-commercial use, and obviously no sales have been lost, even without any aspect of research. You'd probably lose in court, because you copied the whole work, but you might not.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
P2P is banned outright at my government owned institute. First of all, the IT department has an application server set up to detect P2P applications based on the traffic, regardless of what port they are using. Here is why it's banned:- (1) It's a security risk. Most of the time people using P2P applications find themselves targets of port scans and other hack attempts. We really don't need this. (2) The piracy issue. Sure, you can argue for downloading Linux ISOs over BitTorrent, but let's be real here. When you already have some AMAZING bandwidth, downloading ISOs (And Debian as jigdo files) is quick by FTP or HTTP alone. There's nothing research related that can only be found on BitTorrent. Plus, allowing people to host illegal content becomes a liability for the IT department, and we have enough work to deal with. (3) The network issue. It hammers the network unneccessarily, and if allowed, it would create a chicken and egg situation for the IT department. As soon as we do an upgrade of the network, more people would use P2P to use up the bandwidth - requiring another upgrade, which more people would then max out. It's too expensive to keep doing this, we already have enough switches that need replacing.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I'm not a lawyer.
.that EULA you clicked through? Courts usually say they're not worth the paper they're printed. . .whatever.
Contracts which a party isn't expected to read isn't considered to be enforcible. Basically, contracts are about mutual agreement, and if a party is expected to "sign or walk", with no real ability to bargain, then a court won't uphold it. (If you need the network connection, you might be able to get a duress argument in there as well). These contracts are called contracts of adhesino, and courts will refuse to enforce them. So, yeah. .
So why do they roll out such contracts anyway? 1) It's intimidating, and it works on most non-lawyers, who won't know enough to get legal advice from a lawyer. 2) Businesses ARE usually expected to read contracts 3) Plaintiffs can't make the argument "Well, they never TOLD me that I couldn't use P2P!" They did. Plaintiffs just didn't read it.
To conclude, your security policy is probably legally worthless, under the Common Law. It's also not likely that anyone is going to challenge it.
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.
... hehehe ...
If I were an Evil Genius
the clock on the wall says 4 til 7
First of all, I'd say to myself "It's their network and they can decide what I run on it". Then I'd say "However, they didn't appropriately warn me that they didn't want me running BitTorrent. This is all a misunderstanding, let's clear it up." And then I would go to the networking office and say this:
"First of all, this is a misunderstanding. I wasn't downloading or distributing copyrighted material, I was just downloading an update to the software, and I had an appropriate license for it. So I haven't broken the law and I haven't done anything that'll get YOU in trouble, either. I only use BitTorrent to download Linux ISO's (or whatever), and I didn't think anyone would care about that -- it's all properly licensed to me, no laws broken...
I understand why you might not want me to run BitTorrent, and since you obviously don't want me running it on your network, I won't, ok? But do me a favor and restore my network access, because this is all just a misunderstanding and no law has been broken. I'm sorry if I've caused you any trouble."
I would be very polite and businesslike, I would show the network admin respect, and I would try VERY hard to not come across as hostile in any way.
Network priviledges are important to a college kid. And they don't have to turn the tap back on, remember that. BE NICE and clear the mess up, and maybe it'll all get settled in a friendly way.
Of course, if you WERE trading movies or music, you're probably SOL. But you probably weren't (you deserve the benefit of the doubt). Treat it as a misunderstanding that has to be cleared up, and you'll be ok.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Find out who's responsible, and punch them in the face. It's as simple as that.
>>It seems such misunderstandings are common, but it is particularly frustrating when coming from people in the IT field. That kind of "laying the hammer down" happens all the time from IT departments even when they are flat out in the wrong. It's been my experience that many in the IT department get off on thinking they have power that they often its proven they don't really have. Two examples from personal experience: in one the IT department at my military base tried to shut down a user group email list of daily scripture verses and went so far as to put me (the list manager) on report. They got egg all over their face for that when the Chaplain stepped up to the plate and pointed out that their actions violated Freedom of Religeon - something the military has to protect - "seperation of church and state" does NOT apply to the military because the military is a lifestyle and the needs of the service member must not only be protected but co-operation must be met for. In the end the list was given official recognition and the C/O made me area Lay Leader. A second example was while I worked at an Insurance company. I had a good reputation with the IT manager of the office and we'd often talk computers - he'd actually usually ask my advise for personal computing. Well one morning he told me not to play games on company computers but that he'd let it slide this time. Confused I said "ok whatever". Well later that day my boss asked me to look at the multimedia computer because this management training program she'd been doing wouldn't work. A few clicks later I discovered that direct-x was missing! You guessed it - the IT manager had done a routine check on computers, saw direct-x related things on it, assumed they were for games and removed it (this was back in the day of dx3 i think before it integrated so much into the OS and broke down and was buggy all the time). In the end he spent the rest of the day trying to restore the program in vain, she ended up having to start all over again from the beginning - several days of work. Now, yes these are anecdotes and for every one I have of misuse of IT power someone else has 5 of proper use, my point is the origin writer of our thread shouldn't be surprised at all to see IT departments making foolish statements like P2P is illegal. Hell all it is is a new version of FTP. That being said though the college has a right to ban the use of any p2p activity if they want to, but I highly doubt that's actually written anywhere in the student guidebook and he wouldn't have a leg to stand on to ban the kid from the network. Could only suggest it be added to the student handbook and ask him not to do it.
I am a lawyer, and the first question that comes to my mind is whether your school is a public or private institution. If public, you may have a claim for a violation of your First Amendment rights. You have freedom of speech, and while using Bittorrent for infringement would not be considered protected speech, using it for lawful communications certainly is. One of the briefs filed in the Grokster case (by Video Software Dealers Assocaition) makes the point that the Firt Amendment protects the use of P2P technology for lawful communications. As some have noted, schools may restrict uses based on consumption (bandwidth issues), but to suppress a particular method of commuincation because they don't like it has traditionally been frowned upon.
Aire Libre
The Halo fansite Halo.Bungie.Org has recently been using BitTorrent more and more often to distribute Halo videos to the community. Since the number of people downloading these vids has increased dramatically, BitTorrent has become necessary. There are plenty of legal applications for BitTorrent, and in this case, one that is necessary. The beauty of BitTorrent is (as i'm sure everyone here already knows) that the more people are downloading a file, the faster the download speeds are for everyone.
10100111001
1. Until the courts rule that p2p is illegal, it probably isn't.
2. The internet is a p2p network
3. MPAA v Sony (Betamax)
4. Point to the large number of legitimate torrent sites, and explain how bittorrent's design makes it pretty unsuitable for copyright infringement.
Which is probably what the parent poster implied in saying the "condition of using it." Many, many university TOSs stipulate this little gem and many, many students do not bother to read their school's policies. Lately, the courts have sided on the side of those who draft these contracts or policies, even the more ridiculous ones.
This even shows up on occasion in rental agreements where people are silly enough to sign rights for the landlord to enter the premises without notice at any time. People don't read, and they sign. Seems like an unreasonable thing to put in a lease, but if people are willing to sign it, the courts generally uphold it. However, in the example I just gave, some states are stepping up to protect the citizens who sign these things by creating laws that say that even if you sign away that right, it's not legally binding. (In the case of entering the premises by a landlord. However, college dorms are treated differently than apartments--I don't know why--and I have yet to see a single "you can't sign away your rights to maintaining the privacy of your PC contents on a network" law.) I generally maintain the stance that someone should be accountable for what they agree to or sign when what they are agreeing to is posted in a clear, conspicuous manner. And yes, I read EULAs. However, Iguess I can see the occasional reason for not forcing someone to abide by that agreement.
I know of a symposium that sorta (meaning, unofficially) recently conducted an experiment where they gave out TOS for their wireless connections to people who were standing in long lines, and took note of who read it and who didn't. One iteration of the TOS had "You are not reading this" written into it. Almost no one (all college-aged students) actually read the agreement.
I don't know if right-to-search is part of this school's particular policy, but it's something to consider.
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"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
At the university of Helsinki (Where Linux was born) we have a similar policy. I asked one of the admins about the issue with bittorrent clients. The response was simply that because the university has an insane amount of bandwidth, BT tends to transmit at full speed, to the point that other traffic actually suffers noticeably.
The "illegal" part is because enough people have used those to distribute unauthorized copyrighted material that the network disruption can be directly connected to them.
It is a major issue, because the university has to pay for the bandwidth it uses, and p2p clients use as much bandwidth as they get.
The admin mentioned that prioritizing them down does not work, as different clients popping up and changing ports all the time causes too much work. Because they don't serve much purpose to studies, it was decided that it is impossible to separate the legal from illegal uses with existing resources, and it is not feasible to pay for the extra bandwidth.
Here is a site (in finnish) explaining the effect of p2p apps on university bandwidth use, with graphs
You can even be given permission and not have the right to do so, although the only example of that I can think of is when the person you thought was the copyright owner wasn't.
Which is why DRM is so insidious. It claims to map 'copyright holder's permission' directly to 'right to make a copy', thus trying to remove centuries of American (and, hell, British) legal precedents and law that says that's not true.
And, as if that's not enough, in practice it's mapping 'permission of the person who gave the work to you' (as witnessed by public domain works distributed as ebooks with DRM that is illegal to break) to 'right to use' (as witnessed by the whole DeCSS thing).
It's really far out there, legally. 'Permission of the person who gave it to you' has never been required for a 'right to use'. (In fact, nothing has ever been required for a right to use.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?