Ohio University Leads U.S. Colleges in File Sharing

An anonymous reader writes "The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that Ohio University leads the nation in illegal music download notifications, having received 1,287 RIAA complaints since September, with between ten and 15 notices arriving daily. The University is attempting to deflect criticism with a PR piece, saying open networks required for academic freedom make it difficult to stop illegal file sharing. They also point out that the University's architecture makes it much easier to determine who is actually sharing the files. This makes a complaint more likely, as the RIAA knows who to target. "

Comments

Ohio U also has the most students in the country

[Kupek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_US_un iversities_by_enrollment

Related Article

[DanVarga]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/304595_dow nload22.html

makes sense

[flynt]

So that's what these kids are so happy about.

Re:Ohio U also has the most students in the countr

[Undertaker43017]

Wrong school. The Ohio State University is in Columbus. Ohio University is in Athens (southern Ohio)

Re:Ohio U also has the most students in the countr

[Kupek]

Scratch that. Ohio State has the most. Ohio only has 25,000 which is about average for a stat university.

Re:Lies and Statistics

[geoffspear]

At least the reporters are able to tell the difference between OU and OSU, unlike certain Slashdot-posting idiots I could mention.

Top 25 schools...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/304595_dow nload22.html

As a student at Northern Illinois, I am pleased to announce that we are number 13 on the list. I also find it very interesting that Purdue takes a "Eh, it's to much work to care" stance: "Some schools aggressively warn students after they receive complaints. Others don't. Purdue, which has received 1,068 complaints so far this year but only 37 in 2006, said it rarely notifies students accused by the RIAA because it's too much trouble to find alleged offenders." Its to bad that most schools instead take the stance that if you even have something shared you are as guilty as cheaters.

Re:Top 25 schools...

[lhbtubajon]

The reality is that it is not the responsibility of universities to enforce privately-held copyrights. If the RIAA wants to enforce their copyrights, then they should do the investigation, collect evidence, and file suit.

Instead, they are attempting to offload this responsibility to the universities, thereby limiting file sharing AND their own expenses to maximize profit.

Note that an increase of over 2,786% year over year is not explainable by any changes in behavior of the population in question. Instead, it is explainable only by changes in the behavior of the RIAA. The likelihood is that, between 2005 and 2006, the RIAA hired a bunch of writers to fire off 30X more letters than in years' past, so as to manufacture a scary-sounding story that a lazy reporter will swallow.

Re:Top 25 schools...

[InsaneMosquito]

I also attend NIU. I'm very surprised that we are so high in the list because our "Abuse Investigator" is pretty proactive about shutting down copyright violators - in some cases even overzealous, shutting down people who's games happen to run on a P2P port or a use bittorrent to download patches.

Note: Ohio University is not Ohio State

[192939495969798999]

Ohio State has by far more file traders than Ohio University, the network just hides identities better, etc. Ohio U is dinky compared to OSU, and having graduated from OSU, I can tell you for a fact that no school has the internet traffic of OSU. I heard as an undergrad that the campus connections alone, not including the dorms,etc. but just the campus buildings, were pulling a constant 50-60 megs.

Re:Note: Ohio University is not Ohio State

[krotkruton]

After a quick search, OSU has roughly 9000 students (2005 estimate) in on-campus housing while OU has 7800 (from their housing page, not sure when it was last updated). I don't know how their networks work, but generally you are only part of the university's network if you are on-campus, so their networks have a pretty similar capacity. It appears that OSU's size isn't really relevant in this article because the number of people are on the network are close to the same. Smaller schools generally have a higher percentage of on-campus housing out of enrollment.

Not something to be proud of

[rdwald]

They're not the university with the most file sharers...they're the university with the most file sharers WHO GOT CAUGHT. The smart thing to do is ensure that most file sharing is within the university, not with outside sources, to minimize exposure to the ??AA. If you're getting caught, you're doing it wrong.

Information Sharing is part of Learning

[Anonymous Coward]

While the MAFIAA would like to rewind time before the Internet, people generally have the desire to share information freely.

Kid: how come we stopped singing happy birthday?
Mom: because Time-Warner "owns" the rights to that, and we don't want to get on the MAFIAA hit list. The cost is far greater than a usual birthday celebration. And, whats wrong with "Good birthday to you"?

Kid: why is the sky blue
Dad: you know, many natural processes can now be patented, copyrighted and generally "owned". My company, SkyTech is patenting that atmospheric prism effect, so I cannot discuss that without revealing trade secrets, and ongoing patented research. Ask your mother.

Re:Information Sharing is part of Learning

[kidcharles]

Kid: how come we stopped singing happy birthday?
Mom: because Time-Warner "owns" the rights to that, and we don't want to get on the MAFIAA hit list. There's an easy solution to this problem, just sing "Spirit Journey Formation Anniversary" instead.

If they were smart, they wouldn't be caught.

[khasim]

Download the stuff off-campus and then send it to your on-campus site over a secured connection.

Firewall that site so only on-campus addresses can access it. If you want to, make it invitation only. Just remember to encrypt the transmissions.

There, now no one off-campus can tell that you're doing anything at all on-campus.

Open Networks for Academic Freedom?

[susano_otter]

So... with OU students benefiting so much from all this Academic Freedom, they must lead U.S. Colleges in academic excellence too, right?

Re:Ohio U also has the most students in the countr

[jimstapleton]

enough people have covered the error in that, but OU is usually one of the more consistantly ranked schools at the top of the #1 school to party at, get drunk at, and get knocked up on accident at, if I remember correctly.

RIAA actions remind me of a quote

[Sponge Bath]

The quote from Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

Something is going on, and I'm going to find out what it is.
I'm going to catch this kid and put a dent in his future.
Years from now, when he looks back
on the ruin his life has become...
he will remember Edward Rooney (err, RIAA).

Re:Ohio U also has the most students in the countr

[mrchaotica]

Ohio only has 25,000 which is about average for a stat university.

Why is that? Do statisticians prefer large schools so that they can improve their sample sizes?

List

[theheff]

Here's the complete list of colleges receiving RIAA notices-

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?Ar ticleID=6876

Re:We're Number 3!

[HTH NE1]

I know that UNL tracks what MAC addresses use which IP addresses and for how long. They use it to maintain the DHCP server and identify machines that are trying to use the same IP address or using IPs that they aren't allowed to use (anything over 199 in the last octet is reserved in all subnets). Troublemakers get their MAC addresses banned, which works against those who don't know how to change them. (They've had students buying new network cards to get past the blocks.) I'd expect they've enhanced it by now to even better identify which physical port they're plugged into or which wireless router. Getting caught using an unleased IP can get you banned from the network, especially if it's an IP with a number >199 in the last octet (they're reserved).

And yes, I have seen obviously faked MAC addresses in the logs, too. Three that stuck out had all zeroes except for one one.

Crackdown is nationwide and New.

[twitter]

The Boston Herald covered this a few days ago. While the year is only half over, the number of RIAA complaints is already three times what it was last year. It looks like the RIAA got smart and narrowed their indiscriminate abuse of 12 year olds and working moms in housing projects. Now they are indiscriminately abusing University students. The problem for them is that there's no good victim for their harassment, especially when they are wrong so often. The reaction from schools like Purdue is what I'd like to see. Purdue told them to find another bagman. Shame on those schools that have given in so quickly.