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Stanford To Charge Reconnect Fee For DMCA Notices
theantipop writes "Stanford didn't like appearing on the MPAA's list of 25 worst offenders. Last week the university issued notice of a new policy in which students are charged a reconnection fee, ranging from $100 to $1000, if they fail to respond quickly enough to a DMCA complaint. The policy is to take effect September 1 this year. As a show of 'good faith' they are graciously allowing all students to start at the $100 fee level for subsequent notices."
I mean its not like we wont have that money lying around from all the DVDs we sell, right? Right?
Next you wont be able to graduate unless you pay your unpaid DMCA notices.
...they should get on TV next to Jeff Foxworthy and say "I go to Stanford, but I am NOT smarter than a 5th grader!"
Just roll Stanford down in your list of preferred colleges/universities.
A university/college which gives more crap for what money bosses think than its students think is a one that is down the drain. Their reputation and quality of graduates tend to deteriorate rapidly in 5-10 years, which affects even old time graduates.
Just choose a university that cant stomach being a bitch to big buck.
Read radical news here
1
Student DMCA Complaint Policy & Reconnection Fee
May 11, 2007
Background
While file-sharing technology has revolutionized our ability to share information
with one other, its illegal use for pirating copyrighted materials is at unacceptable levels
at Stanford. On March 30, 2007 Stanford was listed as one of the Motion Picture
Association of America's top 25 worst offenders
(http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=196 9). We have also had a steep
increase in the number of piracy complaints filed against us by the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA).
From September 2006 - January 2007, Stanford received nearly as many Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints as we received in the entire 2005-06
academic year. Of these complaints, 90% are directed at undergraduate and graduate
students: students who are jeopardizing the Stanford network by using it as platform to
steal songs, movies, TV shows, video games, books and software.
As of May 2007, the RIAA has identified seven Stanford network connections
that have been targeted for its "pre-litigation" notification program
(http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/022807.asp). The RIAA has said that it will
continue to send out pre-litigation notices each month.
Keeping up with the number of file-sharing complaints coming in under the
DMCA has required almost three full-time Stanford employees. It is an irresponsible
waste of Stanford's resources--your tuition dollars--to spend so much staff time
responding to copyright violations.
To defray these costs while underscoring Stanford's stance on copyright,
beginning September 1, 2007, Stanford will charge violators an Internet reconnection fee.
2
Student DMCA Policy
1st DMCA Complaint: The Information Security Office will forward a copy of the
complaint to the student, with an email instructing the student to
remove copyrighted content and respond to the Information
Security Office. A student has 48 hours to respond to the
Information Security Office (ISO) and attend to the DMCA
complaint. If the student addresses the DMCA complaint within
that time, there will be no disconnection, and no reconnection
fee. But if the student does not respond within 48 hours, the
student will be disconnected from the network. Once the DMCA
complaint has been addressed, the student will be charged $100
to be reconnected to the Stanford network.
2nd DMCA Complaint: The Information Security Office will forward a copy of the
complaint to the student and to the student's Residence Dean.
The student will be disconnected immediately from the network.
Once the DMCA complaint has been addressed, the student will
be charged $500 to be reconnected to the Stanford network.
3rd DMCA Complaint: The Information Security Office will forward a copy of the
complaint to the student. The student will be disconnected
immediately from the network. Network privileges will be
terminated. The Information Security Office will file a
complaint with Judicial Affairs for disciplinary action. New
network privileges may be granted at Stanford's discretion upon
the student agreeing to indemnify Stanford against any further
copyright violations, and paying up to $1000 to establish new
privileges.
Fees
Students may pay fees directly to the University within 30 days of the
reconnection; fees remaining unpaid after this time will be added onto monthly
University bills.
Although the purpose of these fees is to discourage piracy and compensate the
University for resources spent dealing with DMCA complaints, for the first year of the
program, the affected departments have agreed that these fees will be transferred to
ASSU's general operating budget to enhance Stanford student activities.
3
Reconnection Fee Effective Date
The imposition of the reconnection fee is the only substantial modification to
Stanford's treatment of DMCA complaints against studen
Of course, they checked to make sure the charges were real before the instituted the fines, right?
I mean, these wouldn't possibly be trumped up charges after all.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Just because Stanford's name is at risk students, who aren't guilty of a *crime* and have no way to prove their innocence, are being dropped from the campus network and having money extorted from them by the University to reconnect?
That's a bunch of horseshit. The MPAA and RIAA are winning at their game with colleges when more should be turning to the legal minds on campus to see what they can do to shut this finger pointing media game that they are playing.
At my University, they took to blocking BitTorrent traffic, and the traffic of most popular P2P apps. This was pretty effective at stopping 99.9% of students from using the aforementioned services. So, with far more effective methods of counteracting this, why resort to billing students for what may or may not be a legitimate DMCA complaint? Seems like they are just inviting **AA to abuse this.
mmm...muffins
Does it really cost $100-$1000 to update a routing table?
No, of course it doesn't. This goes right up there with my U's $100 "administrative fee" they charge for forwarding you an email complaining about file sharing.
(IANAL)
so if someone from Stanford pisses me off i can send a fake DMCA letter and cost them $100?
sweet.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Students = loud mouthed arrogant bastards with their heads up their own asses WHO LEECH FROM MY TAXES!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Just roll Stanford down in your list of preferred colleges/universities.
While I believe that Stanford buckling to "Big Buck" pressure is lame beyond belief, I can't agree with your argument. For prospective students to ignore Stanford because for the next four years they wouldn't be able to easily torrent some movies and risk their future and/or proximity to home by attending another college that happens to ignore the DMCA notices is just shortsighted.
Enrollment should drop to 0, in good faith that Stanford and other universities will get the message that they shouldn't sign up to be enforcers for the MAFIAA.
The solution is of course to use a program like WASTE and create a small network of friends (and by friend I mean non-leech).
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
So not only is Stanford graciously enforcing the RIAA's copyrights for the RIAA, but they are also joining in on the payday for the pirates that are caught? Bad Stanford!
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Don't forget to pay your $100 reconnect fee you DMCA-violating teabaggers.
Examples?
I tend to disagree a bit here. A universities reputation is based on the quality of its research and how well it's graduates to in the work force. Research is paid for by outside companies which ARE concerned about their IP. A company will not want to be associated with a "pirate" university.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
I wonder how Stanford would react to unauthorized duplications of that university's publications...
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Stanford is a guiding light for America. They show how well they can knuckle down and respond to commands to organizations that have zero interest in the welfare for their students or Americans in general.
Unfortunately, not standing up to people is becoming the standard here in America. We have a war which can't be won unless real numbers of troops come in, as even our President doesn't have the guts to do what it really takes to win a war, and that's fire up a draft to get the boots on the ground needed to lock down hostile areas.
Perhaps the American flag should be a concept similar to Germany's, except different colors. Our flag should be gold, yellow, then black. The gold symbolizes our past, freeing Europe from tyranny. The yellow symbolizes the pure cowardice of our actions and the fact that everyone knuckles down to tyrants, and black shows what our future will be if this continues.
Apparently, if within 48 hours of receiving the notice, the student responds to the Stanford Information Security Office and explains that he has a right to host the content, there is no disconnection and no $100 fee.
Spoken like a true Yale man
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Stanford saw the *AA making sweet money on trumped up charges and decided to cut themselves in for a share.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Apparently, if within 48 hours of receiving the notice, the student responds to the Stanford Information Security Office and explains that he has a right to host the content, there is no disconnection and no $100 fee.
What if the student isn't around for 48 hours (busy drinking, studying at the library, or fucking their SO at an off-campus location)? They should be given a chance at an in-person interview to explain the situation and fight the "charges" of IP infringement brought before they are charged anything.
I'm not saying not to cut their connection but to charge money too? Please.
Did anyone RTFA?? They're not charging for students getting DMCA notices, they're charging deadbeat students who don't respond within 48 hours. It's not hard to reply within TWO DAYS, and it's very common for universities to have fines for students who don't deal with paperwork on time. This is nothing new.
> A universities reputation is based on the quality of its research and how well it's graduates to in the work force.
Last I checked Stanford was a liberal arts university, not a trade school. Their reputation is based on their scholastics, not how much money their graduates make.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Yes. Stanford better watch out, because we know that students that regularly violate copyright laws are known to be much more likely to raise the reputation of a university than those who show some regard for intellectual property.
Next thing you know, Stanford will be expelling students that cheat.
Silly Stanford.
It appears to me that a simple response of "I have no illegal copyrighted material and have never participated in any illegal activities of this nature." is a perfectly valid response folks. Remember, the DCMA allows a response. It doesn't assume guilt.
I like this. If a student says the claim is wrong, the RIAA gets 48 hours to provide proof. If they fail to do so, further DMCA notices will be ignored till they pay $100 to get 'reconnected'.
IT time? Oh, I forgot. Like most college fees, they can just invent a number and charge whatever they want. It is Stanford (the Silver Spoon Ritz) after all!
Hax-fu?
Next you wont be able to graduate unless you pay your unpaid DMCA notices.
Most schools require a zero balance to graduate.
Being denied net access is one of the principle wrongs of the right to read story. Even today, that is fatal. Witout network access, you can't register for classes. If Stanford has special policies for computers within their network which they deny to computers outside their network all of those services are denied for those "disconnected".
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
the parent was just Karma Whoring.
Few, if any, employers will ever ask or care what college you graduated from. They will ask what degree you have, but rarely do they care what college it's from.
:P
The only realistic advantage of the ivy league schools is the faint hope that you get a higher quality education and bragging rights, but few people are impressed with ivy league credentials these days.
The students are rich enough to get their own T1 off campus anyway or just remote in to the server farm back at that parents house or such.
Why doesn't this place just get a napster subscription like all the other universities ? That tends to stop the need of most students to DL music anyway and they offer good deal to universities on bulk/site subscriptions.
Sounds like the biggest problem is their IT department is far behind the curve hence P2p is even possible on the network AND they have no legal music distribution system. Whats up with that. Maybe I should send in my resume
I see a new western union commercial here!
kid: Mom? Dad? I need some cash, quick, before my webiste goes down.
Just because of a letter and no civil or criminal conviction you can lose your connection and have to pay to have it turned back on? The LA mafia shakedown indeed.
Read it carefully - roughly, after the first notice, it's a $100 fee. After the second notice, it's $500 plus a notice to the residence dean (like a referral to the principle). After the third, it's $1000 plus a referral to Judicial Affairs (which, given Stanford's honor code, is likely to result in a suspension). The previous policy was a network disconnect until a student certifies offending material is removed, the second offense was another disconnect plus a notice to the residence dean, then after the third, referral to Judicial Affairs and a student was PERMENANTLY BANNED from the Stanford network. (Makes it quite difficult to do classwork.) I'm personally bothered with this new policy; makes it too easy for a rich kid to ignore everything.
Stanford's networking folks do look carefully at the notices, protect student privacy unless faced with a court order, and a student can contest the DMCA takedown notice without penalty with the eager assistence of Student Legal Affairs - although doing so waives your privacy. As of two years ago, no student had ever contested a notice - they were all clear-cut DMCA violations. And only well-documented violations ever got passed to students.
Now, let's be honest here ... I have yet to see a single person on Slashdot ever suggest running a file-sharing service from their desktop at work. So exactly why is a university a different story? Regardless of the merits of the DMCA itself (I personally think it's a stupid law, guilty-until-proven-innocent and with punishments far worse than the violation itself), the DMCA is still the law; why should a university be expected to shield individuals engaged in illegal behavior?
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
Just roll Stanford down in your list of preferred colleges/universities.
What and just let the MAFIAA have Stanford and everything it does? NFW. It is outrageous that people can be thrown off their network, fined and out of school without a trial on the word of a big dumb company that's got a reputation for suing innocent people. This needs to be fought at every level. We can't let big dumb publishers destroy public institutions over their pop proffits. Pop music and movies are not worth this. Lawrence Lessig must be furious. Do you think he's going just leave? Where will you go that can't be screwed over?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This is going to put a great big smile on Craig McCaw's face.
I really did though. Damn Slashdot, moving at the speed of molasses, even with the Firehose.
Why, I avoided MIT because their campus sucks. When you're going to spend 3 - 5 years of your life at college why not look at the "little things" and chose one that meshes with what you want?
Perhaps they should block all promotional movie sites associated with the MPAA and charge them $10,000 to $100,000 per site to reconnect.
Universities tend to be sluggish in the internal politics of their administrations, despite their reputation of being progressive and cutting edge. There seems to be a time lag of about ten years between the opinions of most of the students on an issue and that of the university administration. But when the administration does change, it often seems to go overly towards the opinion that the previous university administration was so against. There seems to this pattern of bonehead inertia followed by a swing too much in the other direction ten years later. I noticed this during the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s when lots of quality professors were being fired for protesting the war in its early years and then having universities go strongly anti-military in the 1970s. This pattern also showed up in the 1980s with resistance to 'political correctness' in the 1980s followed by a stiff overreaction towards PC mentality in the 1990s.
So if there is any validity to these observations, then there may be a complete change of view against the RIAA and restrictive copyrights on the part of university administrations in about ten years that will last for another twenty or so afterwards. This pattern of overreaction to extremes followed by an idealogical reversal in the other direction seems to be the general dynamic of university administrations as the younger people who suffered from their positions in the beginning take control of the administrations through the long personnel change process. Often they are the only ones interested in gaining control of universities given the tediousness of administrative processes. Revenge seems to be a good motivator and would explain this tendency to shift between extremes.
So don't worry too much about your university being a poodle to the RIAA cokeheads. It will most likely change over time. In the meantime, set up websites where you can support the fellow students who have been randomly selected for RIAA extortion.
Society pays more for music and movies than they do for education. To cement their position, it seems that the MPAA/RIAA thinks they can get away with putting people in jail and taking their houses and life savings. The IRS got a little carried away like that back in the 1970's, the result was the election of Ronald Reagan. While society values entertainment, it's unlikely they will put up with this kind of harassment for long and copyright law is about to get a serious re-calibration.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Someone should make a new pro-Berkeley, anti-Stanford t-shirt about this one. :)
guilty until proven inoccent.
Ok, I'm confused. I may just be missing something that is implied in this policy, but there does not appear to be any process to have DMCA Notification letters reviewed for validity? It appears as if the University, upon receiving a complaint letter, just assumes the student is guilty? I mean, I'm sure we're all *very* confident that 100 percent of such DMCA complaints received by the University will be legitimate complaints of factual violation by students. *cough*
Begin the countdown until a student or group of students brings suit against the University. . .
First off, I submitted this several days ago.
Second off, they already had a three-strike policy, this basically just adds the fine ("reconnection fee").
Third off, this is disappointing but not surprising, as Stanford (being the "west coast faux ivy") seems to be even more reputation-paranoid than most schools, and really doesn't care at all about the quality of life for students (particularly off campus grad students, but I digress). Mostly this is annoying because they buy into the "stealing" rhetoric in the official announcements, and because it stands in stark contrast to the recent Harvard law professor who said that universities should fight this crap.
The only thing this place has going for it is the actual quality of the academics and most of the professors. Good thing that's the most important part of a school. Well, I guess the architecture is nice too...
I think it's perfectly reasonable to de-rank Stanford because of this. If they're willing to harass their own students based on the whims of a private company, it's a short shot to doing more than just harass. Stanford (like others that seem to be more aware and responsible) has the clout to completely ignore the RIAA (as other universities have done), but instead it chooses to 1) harass students and 2) charge them arbitrary fees. All at the whims of a totally unrelated private company. Pretty dodgy if you ask me.
They'd probably cheer; academics tend to hate the restrictive policies of academic publishers.
Notice, I didn't even say "Copyright infringement"...
Even if it was about copyright infringement, let me throw out an idea. It's not really a justification, just a concept:
Maybe if a student is actually pirating interesting stuff -- V for Vendetta, Ghost in the Shell, Firefly, Mythbusters, or take your pick -- it would be part of their education. I don't mean officially, but maybe these kids would actually take something from what they pirate. Given that they're starving college students, it's not like they have the spare cash to spend on all of these things, especially if they only buy a few (I wouldn't have bought Firefly if I didn't see it somewhere first).
In other words, piracy would tend to actually challenge and educate students. Cheating can do neither of these things -- all it teaches is how to beat the system, but it also makes it possible for the student to skip some education.
But maybe it's not even about copyright infringement. Given the way the DMCA works, it is (still!) illegal to play a DVD on Linux. And, whether you love or hate Linux, you have to appreciate that a kid who's bothered to run it is probably somewhat unique in some way.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
No, as a matter of fact, they're not. Okay, the RIAA, MPAA, and DMCA turn my stomach as much as the next person who's realized that copyright is broken in the Internet age, but I'm going to have to play devil's advocate here and insist that people look a little more carefully at Stanford's position. From the release:
Yes, this means the DMCA is annoying and overbearing, but that's not Stanford's fault. In fact, it shouldn't even be Stanford's problem in the first place—Stanford itself didn't infringe anything—but the copyright holders have to go through Stanford to get a name and address for the infringer. Stanford could just ignore it, but I don't know what sort of nasty liabilities that opens them up to under the DMCA. (I suppose that's the crux of the matter, so any DMCA experts are invited to fill in that blank. For now I'm assuming it potentially makes life miserable for them.)
So they have to connect the copyright holders with the alleged infringers, and it's costing them big money to do so, and they wouldn't have to do anything if no one on the campus network was file-sharing illegally. They could just as easily have said, "We don't care how you use our network, but some other people do. As long as we continue to receive DMCA notices, the cost of dealing with them will be shared by all students in the form of a network subscription fee. What? You've never file-shared in your life and shouldn't have to pay? Well, apply a little peer pressure to your peers. When we stop getting DMCA notices, we'll stop charging the fee."
And that wouldn't have been beyond the pale, although it's obviously not fair. But they didn't do that. Read carefully the "penalty" for the first notice:
If you're infringing, you clean up your act and respond to the complaint within 48 hours, and as far as Stanford is concerned, you're golden. You may still get sued by the copyright holder, but let's face it: Under U.S. copyright law that is absolutely their right, and absolutely not Stanford's responsibility to shield you. If you're not infringing and the complaint is in error, you contact the complainant within 48 hours to tell them so, and you're still golden. Does the DMCA make false accusations easy and annoying? Yes. Does it need to be repealed or fixed so that copyright holders need to meet some burden of proof before placing any burden on innocent defendants? Yes. Does Stanford have an obligation to judge who's innocent and who's guilty, or to fix the DMCA? No. The only thing they care about is whether students get the complaint off Stanford's plate and deal with it themselves in a timely manner, because it's their problem, not Stanford's.
So be careful how you characterize things. Stanford is not network dropping and extorting money from innocent students. If you get a DMCA notice and ignore it, it doesn't matter whether you're infringing or not: You're not innocent, you're lazy, and you're costing Stanford money. If you take care of your own legal responsibilities, Stanford will leave you alone.
Are you saying that Stanford (A Law School) does not have enough budding lawyers and pre-grad law students to berry the RIAA in legal paperwork?
:)
What a wonderful learning opportunity the students would have.
Come on, this is Slashdot, where the smallest of slights is supposed to be grounds to:
Discontinue purchasing all products from a company with the thousands available in its line (Sony, Walmart, etc),
Quit your job (how many ask slashdots have you seen where the question is: "My boss doesn't understand the importance of X, what do I do?... and everyone yells get a new job! like you can snap your fingers and get a better job without any loss of benefits, vesting, etc.)
Move from your home, possibly out of state (See NY AG story).
Now we are also expected to turn down offers from one of the most respected universities in the world, because they are trying to avoid a legal hassle.
Is it no wonder that most "geeks" are seen as the problem children in most companies?
Chances are there are plenty of public terminals and computers in labs around campus which can be used for network access even if your personal computer can't be connected.
What a PITA. Are you really going to be able to do your work standing around public terminals at the food court?
If they do it by logon id, you are screwed wherever you are. It's pointless to turn off a dorm connection if the same person can use the wireless, so eventually this will become a total ban. Most of these schools will throw you out if you get too many of these letters anyway. It might be easier to flunk them out instead.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Where's Lawrence Lessig to save the day? Oh yeah, Stanford's his boss. Too bad Stanford has to play the economics game rather than using its philosophical resources.
No, they don't. They quite enjoy the copyright-driven royalties, or else they'd sell everything at printing cost (or less) and put it all on the internet (after that became feasible). Your statement is only valid for scholars writing articles for journals, but even then I'd have to ask why they don't ditch the for-profit publisher.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Okay. Let's say you're my Stanford roommate, and I hate you because you snore loudly. All I have to do is file three DMCA complaints against you (or get a friend off campus to do so) and Stanford will zap you with $1600 of fines and you'll be brought up for disciplinary action. (Think you're gonna *want* to stick around after that?)
The policy fines students for being accused. THE KID DOESN'T HAVE TO BE GUILTY OF ANYTHING, THEY GET FINED FOR BEING ACCUSED. Do *you* want to go to a school where you're not innocent until proven guilty, you're not even guilty until proven innocent, you're just automatically and permanently guilty the moment anyone makes an accusation?
I had to write up the policy for a university dealing with the question of what to do with RIAA complaints a few years ago. In my opinion, Stanford is being *monumentally* stupid. I told the university I worked for to become an ISP and start charging students for internet access if they wanted it, and put no restrictions on that access aside from what minor restrictions an ordinary residential ISP might place. Then it would all be *their* problem, not the university's.
You think what Sony did was a "small slight?" If you or I did it we'd be in jail right now.
I'm fascinated by your use of the term "problem children". Most companies want sheep who will do as they are told unconditionally, and be content with what the company gives them.. Because some "geeks" want to make a stand for something they believe in, they are "problem children" who should not be hired. In the old days, you tried not to hire outsiders or "Educated people" to work at the mill, because they would try to organize a union or something like that. Now Unions are being done-away with via trade and immigration (In particular the exploitation of Immigrant labor). The "Right to read" http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html is eventually going away, along with a lot of our other freedoms.
It's a game of numbers. There are only approximately 17000 people at Stanford. Assuming they're all law students (they're not) that might put them on even numbers with the Goons. However the students have to go to class, and pay bills, not so with the other side.
One major question I have is what is the contesting process like. The policy basically says "Take it down, pay the fine, get your privileges back," what is the student to do if it isn't legit? Does the service get restored while it's working through whatever resolution process, or is it one more incentive to shut up and pay up?
The reasons Stanford did this are very simple, are explained in detail by Stanford, and were entirely left out of the summary. They have to pay 3 people full time to respond to DMCA complaints, the vast majority of which are caused by students doing something wrong. The salary these three people earn would be better spent on education, and it isn't fair that the entire student body has to pay for the acts of the ones infringing. They're shifting the costs of responding to these DMCA complaints to the students who cause them.
;)
As a show of good faith, for the first year all collected money will not offset the salaries, but will in fact go directly to the student government.
To reiterate, they're just shifting the costs of responding to DMCA complaints onto the students too dumb to get their warez and MP3s from usenet like the rest of us
Do exactly this. Just go to the dorms, do a quick inventory of what the room numbers are, and send at least two notices each. You can address it to "resident" for each room number, no need to know names or anything else. Alternatively, do a ping sweep (or similar tactic) on your local network, and send notices to their office regarding all IPs you hit -- or simply make shit up, you're bound to hit one or two of the firewalled ones.
Everyone, please coordinate through Slashdot or something similar. Even do it around replies to this comment. Just make sure you aren't duplicating effort. Two is enough to force every single student you troll to be disconnected, once, and fined $100. That should be enough to cause problems for their "Information Security Office" even if the students were happy, and they should be pretty genuinely pissed off about the fines. But if you send more than that, you'll just be inconveniencing the students, not the university.
Also, $100 is really enough. They do threaten that after enough notices, they'll charge $1000, but really, every student has $100 (even if they don't want to let go of it); $1000 is starting to get serious (in case this somehow backfires). I imagine they won't be fined at all, anyway, but don't be an ass.
Now, the reasons I don't agree with this policy:
For higher education, they do sure seem stupid here...
The solution to "spending so much staff time responding to copyright violations" should be really fucking obvious: Don't spend so much staff time responding to copyright violations! Make the students sign something when they get their network access that makes the student -- not Stanford -- responsible for the copyright violation. Then make the RIAA take it to court.
(Does this work, legally? For all I know, the DMCA might have some sort of fine about not responding to copyright violation notices...)
Where'd the other 10% go, pray tell?
Where is your evidence that:
This is why you should send two to each -- to demonstrate how fucking bad this policy is. The MAFIAA has a history of suing grandmothers, 12-year-olds, and dead people, not to mention one woman who had never used a computer or the Internet in her life. Notice how I said "suing", NOT "sent takedown notices".
So, before they even get to the part where they drag you into court for something you didn't do, couldn't have done, or at the very least, their only proof is one screenshot that has your IP in it, Stanford will kick you off the network for the second notice, no matter who sent it or what you've done about the first notice. (The 48 hours only applies to that first notice.)
I'm sorry, but this is the kind of policy that would send me packing instantly. As in, bags packed, out the fucking door, get my transfer credits, drive to my parents' house, and explain that I need a new college. Whether or not I'd been doing anything illegal (which I have, by the way: I play DVDs that I own on Linux!)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Judging by the quality of writing in your post, you obviously didn't go to Standford.
IANAL, but I play one on
I'm sure that even if you take longer than 48 hours to prove the DMCA notice is incorrect, they won't charge you, and will reconnect you. Stanford admins tend to be reasonable human beings.
A certain Cambridge college has implemented a similar policy. The fine is a charge of 2 terms' connection fee (totalling c. £50, around $100), and disconnection for 8 weeks of term time. However, this is only after investigation (we've had two cases so far, where both students were asked if the allegations were true, and admitted it). There is no policy, as of yet, for repeat offences.
However, I don't really, in all honesty, see the issue. The charges are only imposed if the allegations are "proven" to be true. Students admit to what is a breach of the ToS for the College network, and are punished accordingly, an amount enough to discourage them from repeating said actions, but not of unreasonably great significance ($100 on top of $550 (the total network charge for the average undergrad))
I would like to add that I don't necessarily see the ToC as being "correct", given that as far as I'm aware, downloading an avi of Prison Break is about the same cost as videotaping it from freeview Sky, however, I feel that's beyond the scope of this discussion
They don't care enough to search out everyone who's pirating media using their network, but if you don't respond within 24 hours of the first notice that there is illegal copyrighted material on your computer (they just zero in on one file), they'll temporarily suspend your internet access. Then if you don't respond after that, they just deactivate your account and you have to pay the $87 or whatever it is to reactivate it.
Why, I avoided MIT because their campus sucks. When you're going to spend 3 - 5 years of your life at college why not look at the "little things" and chose one that meshes with what you want?
Your implication that 3-5 years of campus life means a hill of beans to the 50-60 years you're likely to spend afterwards suggests to me that you're a recent graduate, if even that.
Let me put it this way. Within 5 years of graduating college, you will have forgotten what it was even like. (That's especially true if you spend the entire time drunk like a lot of college kids do.) So it's a huge mistake to base your choice - which affects your entire life afterwards - on whether or not you like the campus. Ditto for DMCA policies, which are just as irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
You should be basing your college choices on three things, and only three things: a) quality of education, b) reputation in your chosen field, and c) networking opportunities. Using any other criteria is sacrificing decades of your life for a couple of good years that you will probably just forget about once you get out into the real world. The last thing you want is to be stuck in some dead-end job when you're 30, feeling like you have no future and thinking "maybe if I'd gone to a different school, I'd have a better job, more friends and more money right now..."
The good news for you is that it sounds like you may still have time to transfer to MIT. That's assuming you actually got accepted there, of course.
So Stanford is now making money off the DMCA takedown notices and the RIAA/MPAA lawsuits. What crap. Plus, those fees are crazy. We at my university charge $175 for a user port, residence or admin for life time access on that cable. Besides having the college students pay $1,000's of dollars in legal fees, now the school is trying to take money from them. Is that what this world has really come to?
Bryan
That would be a good response.
judging by the quality of my writing in my post, and taking into account the fact that english is my secondary language, i have gone to a university that is probably way better than stanford.
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Stanford's "budding lawyers" are quite likely hoping to get jobs with firms that would represent the *AA's and similar big-money interests.
They mention "Ruckus" as an alternative to piracy. Here:
Ruckus is not an acceptable option; songs are DRM'd and Windows Media Player only.
I know of nowhere songs are sold individually for less than a dollar, and they don't mention anywhere. I thought Ruckus was free?
Renting movies through the mail and buying them online both cost money, require time to ship, and require the student to get off their ass and go get their mail. Yet the only legal downloading is encumbered with DRM, except (maybe) on iTunes, which (last I checked) has only the iTunes interface for buying stuff, meaning you can't simply buy a song with a browser on an alternate OS.
The only thing that comes close is renting DVDs at the local video store. You could just run over, rent 10 or 20 at once (or however many they let you), rip them all (or however many you have the disk space for), then take them all back the next day. You then have at least a week, maybe a month's worth of movies if you're also taking time for schoolwork. And it's not like piracy is a huge concern here, really -- you can only watch the same movies over and over so many times, right? In any case, when you're done, you're going to have to go get more. And, unless you're either made of disk space or burning DVDs like mad, you're going to have to delete most of the ones you rented last time to make way for these ones.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Because you live there. You have certain rights when it comes to your residence, and as well you should. My employer is free to search my desk and computer at work any time they wish, it all belongs to them. However they are not free to come in to my house, even though I occasionally do work from home. Well, just because a dorm room is small, doesn't make it any less your residence than an apartment. Cops still have to get a warrant to search it, and such.
Then there's the problem on non-competitiveness. In a normal house or apartment, you can get net access from anyone who wants to provide it to you. However on campus, it is an anti-competitive situation with the university being the only provider. That's ok, but it does mean that they have certain duties in regards to how they provide the access. Failing to do so could leave them open to lawsuits. Universities have been sued successfully before to require to allow private industry to compete in given areas.
So this isn't quite like a work computer.
Okay, so if you can't afford to rent these educational masterpieces, I guess that going to the library and reading a book is out of the question. Somehow I don't think that Stanford students got there by incorporating Firefly into their high school curriculum.
So why would they need to write a policy that says they will charge you in such a case?
Hasty, badly-thought-out and excessively severe policy, or chance to rip off their students - you decide.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
This is not a troll. This is simply an off-topic question from an old geek. Besides doing research and emails, obviously, what do you use computers for on campus these days? (certainly not file sharing, eh??). Registration for classes was mentioned. Hmmm. I didn't realize that. What else? Communications with professors? And??
you wanna talk about shortsighted? by giving money to Stanford you are indirectly encouraging them to continue bowing to these outside corporations. if you want to take a truly far-sighted stance you would do well to consider crossing Stanford off of your list of prospective schools. if enrollment drops by any measurable amount and prospective students make it clear that they wont even consider Stanford as a prospective university because they fine students based on hearsay, you'd better believe other universities will take note, even if Stanford doesn't.
"Luke, you've switched off your targeting computer, what's wrong?"
Wouldn't being technically "guilty" make it a bit difficult to contest a DMCA notice successfully?
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Ummm, because "big things" are more important than "little things", perhaps?
I agree with some of what you say, to an extent.
But Stanford, while they do have the "clout" to ignore anyone tried to enforce DMCA on them, that is not what they should do. If you read their policy, they are not in the business of piracy, nor condoning piracy. All they are doing in this case is passing on the cost of work that has to be done in these cases down to the students who are doing this. The fact is, Stanford is an institute of learning, in this case they are teaching people not to break the law.
And, IMHO, this policy is not all that draconian either. They are giving a get out jail free card for case #1. It is case #2 and #3 that are the bad ones. IMHO, if you are continually doing this sort of act (especially after being caught once), then maybe you should face the punishment.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
I must disagree with you here. While I will start off by admitting that I am a recent college graduate (been out almost 2 years now), I believe that choosing the campus with the right feel belongs among the criteria you mentioned. There are enough quality educational institutions out there that you have an obligation to yourself to choose one that fits all your needs.
When selecting a college it is important to consider the quality of education (which should be the top consideration), but it is also essential to consider the social atmosphere and the feel of the area surrounding the campus. You will be much more likely to have a positive experience and perform well in college if you feel comfortable with the area and the people with whom you must work for those 3-5 years.
I am of the opinion that college is just as much about learning who you are and what you can accomplish as learning your trade. Especially when considering the social ineptitude of many of the Slashcrowd, social education is an essential part of college. It's part of adapting to the "real" world of adulthood. If you aren't getting that out of your college as well as a top notch education, I think you're wasting the best opportunity you'll ever have.
Forecast for tomorrow: A few sprinklings of genius with a chance of DOOM!
My school (newhaven.edu) uses the 'blackboard' system. This allows professors to make hand-outs and other documents available to everyone without wasting paper. All my professors prefer to communicate through email.
This 'reconnect' fee policy will likely be sue-worthy.
Blar.
Not everything that's worth watching is in their library.
And reading a book is great, but it won't teach you the same thing. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
its not ignoring or not ignoring what students think. you can take some opinion into account, but you can do that for 10 seconds and just ignore it.
its apparently that kind of "taking opinions into account" that stanford had already decided to sell their students to mere allegations. as if anyone can assure that riaa records are true and as if anyone was able to examine their "fact collecting" process.
universities with less reputation have saintized themselves against riaa by defending their students. it is pathetic for a university with stanford's reputation to do what they did.
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Don't get caught, dumbasses. It causes us work and negative press. Here's a reminder that we expect you to be smart about what you do: You won't get back on the net before you pay $100.
Besides doing research and emails, obviously, what do you use computers for on campus these days?
Besides research and paper writing, what else is there to do? Sure, math and engineering classes still require hand calculations, but even those are better organized as images. We are all on one long curve between doing everything on paper and everything electronically, the end point is inevitably electronic. Movies and music are also tools of self expression that will be taken seriously by any student in the future that wants to make a point.
A networked computer has become a indispensable tool. In short, your computer is your text, your library, your entertainment and your communication system. A student that is removed from the network suddenly loses all of the important things a computer does at school, including the ability to protest the loss.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
No one said "how much money", but how well its graduates do (in other words, based on the reputations of the places that employ their graduates).
...no degree is completely useless. The reason I dropped out of computer science was because it was 2003 and after working at a major cable ISP, I realized that I was in it more for money and without the money--and seeing WorldCom refugees have their lives collapse because they were making a fraction of the six figures they usually got--it was nearly pointless for me. Hence, while some 'useless' degrees may seem pointless to you, the idea of getting a solid degree is indeed a slippery slope. Oh, and you are right about experience. I'm working my way through IT work and did so while majoring in English Literature and Telecommunications. It is possible to do both, very well.
The other guy is right. College is very important and sets the course of the rest of your life. Some colleges literally make the difference of being friends and frat/sorority members with powerful people or lower level managers or corporate drones.
To skip it because of some short term reason is really very foolish. But then again- that's self selecting. The people who are going to succeed are going to do whatever it takes to do so. The rest will complain that they didn't succeed later-- when they are 30 or 40 and start to see the huge compounding those little mistakes and decisions they made in their early 20's are having.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"A universities reputation is based on the quality of its research and how well it's graduates to in the work force."
Which university did you graduate from, and did it have an English department?
There is more to life than better jobs, money and friends that come with the money. I went to a very demanding school and regret it. I would have been happier if Id had a life. Though having contacts is a HIGHLY important issue, and any good school should get some doors open for their students, a good professional is STILL a good professional, regardless of where he got his gegrees, Ph.Ds, etc. I have found reputation to be very deceiving. Of course you get a lot more resources in MIT; but sometimes resources are not enough. In my opinion its not a matter of campuses and whatnot, its a matter of PEOPLE. And actually enjoying what you do. P.D.: anyway, if anyone signs something and doesnt comply it, then they should NOT complain. Either you play the game by the rules, or you dont (and go make your own)
... Nerd And Good Looking: The Next Step in Evolution
I live in a university town. The amount of stupid being traded around here is embarrassing. If you have real passion for a field, then you can learn it better than any U can teach it, and you can do so without spending tens of thousands of dollars. The only really good things offered by Universities which I have seen are linked to comradeship, and you can get that for free as well.
--Which is not to say that a university tour can't be worth your while. All experiences are valid on some level, but why anybody would waste their time with a big institution which has no respect for its students is quite beyond me.
-FL
Which one?
Le français vous intéresse?
Ok, I graduated 5 years ago so I have a little more perspective than you're implying. Right now I am making good money working at Booz Allen so I not exactly in a dead-end job. Granted, I am making less than 2 collage dropouts I know but they over 26 so I am fine at under 170k for now.
Anyway, the quality of education at most top tear schools is extremely over rated. Most of a schools reputation is based around the quality of students they admit not the quality of education they supply. As to networking it's more important to connect with the right type of person than people at the right school. My older sister went to Washington and Lee and avoided connecting to people with money and spent most of her time with the international students and she is making around 1/2 what I do right now. On the other hand, I got my first 2 jobs because I had good connections.
There are a lot of great schools in the US spending a lot of time ranking which is 1st though 15th is a waste of time. Back in HS most people only have a vague understanding of what they want out of life so picking the best CS school is silly when you might end up studding math and getting masters in neuroscience. I think it's most important to pick and environment and social group that you're comfortable with vs. some extremely arbitrary school rank.
PS: In 5 years people look at you funny when you include your collage GPA and in 20 years the collage you went to is little more than a foot note when compared to your work history and grad school. How far you go is more about when you decide to cost than which scool you went to.
Students will certainly learn that actions -- especially when these actions are lies by big corporations -- have consequences all the same. Some of them may even learn how and where to effectively fight back.
Perhaps the parents, who will certainly be called upon to pay this fee, will learn the most when it's time to start telling their adult kids "No!"
(Note to kids: If you must go to court, don't show up 17 minutes late.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
im not into flamewars.
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Couldn't they charge the RIAA an "Administrative Fee" for tracking down the alleged offender anyway?
Let me give you a huge clue: the purpose of a University is to further research in one or more disciplines. That is all. Undergraduates are there to learn the fundamentals of that field, preparing themselves to contribute after a few years. If most people leave academia after graduating, that's acceptable only because a sufficient proportion of excellent students move to the next stage.
With this in mind, there is only one question in your choice of university: Will it help me increase my skills and knowledge in my chosen discipline, so I can contribute further to it? It doesn't matter whether it's a brand name Uni or the local community college, as long as it helps you improve sufficiently: it's your brain that's going to be doing the work, your brain that can choose which challenges to face. You build a reputation in the academic community by what you write, not what people in the same dorm room as you have written.
Had you begun your post, "If your aim is to increase your salary by riding the coat tails of researchers at certain brand name Universities, getting out into the corporate world as soon as you have a piece of paper to wave about..." then I might be more inclined to agree with you. But then you're just another abortion, acceptable to academia only because not everyone who graduates is like you.
And you have as many chances in life to do that as you have half-decades. The only job that's dead-end is the one you are working on when you die.
Let me put it this way. Within 5 years of graduating college, you will have forgotten what it was even like. (That's especially true if you spend the entire time drunk like a lot of college kids do.)
Maybe if you had a poor college experience. For me, and many of my college friends, the memories are just as fresh now (5 years later) than they were the day I left. I would give *ANYTHING* to return to college full-time and live on campus. Real life sucks.
Please note, I was one of those people that spent 99% of my time in college inebriated beyond belief.
The reputation of the institution is important, yes. But somewhere along the way someone in the administration must have lost sight of certain principles.
Piracy is wrong, and Stanford should make every effort to prevent it on their networks. I have no doubt that piracy takes place there. However a review of RIAA court cases would show that they quite often make claims they can't substantiate. In the case of Stanford and its students, where's the proof?
In essence Stanford is being asked to provide the proof. What's worse, the university is looking to make the accused students pay for the investigation before handing them over to their accusers.
I know there are legitimate uses for BitTorrent and the like, but I'd feel better if the university simply blocked its use. Make a proactive effort to prevent piracy, and let that be their defense against the RIAA and MPAA. Continue to educate the students in the issues of copyright and enforce that the same way you enforce other issues--through the student code of conduct.
I understand the need to mitigate the cost of dealing with the RIAA/MPAA. Ideally this would be done by passing the costs on to the people who illegally download copyrighted content rather than all students, which is what this policy attempts to do. That's very difficult when you can't absolutely prove who the pirates are. The RIAA and MPAA have created a climate that adds this additional overhead to the cost of running a large network, and I'm saddened to see that Stanford has decided to pay this tax.
Making deals with the RIAA/MPAA is like making deals with the devil. On the surface you may benefit but in the end you end up losing your soul.
3-5 years of life in a campus that you do not like, but in a good university can ruin/change your life fundamentally.
you are making a mistake of evaluating human beings like machines - better in environments that will bring 'optimal' results for some standard goal.
it is not as such. humans are emotionally, psychologically complex creatures.
spending 3-5 years in an environment that excites you, fires you up, is fun and fulfilling with good atmosphere and social company that SUITS oneself, and in youth years of 18-22, the "free" years, which fundamentally and finally shapes and molds one's character, outlook on life and approach to life makes great positive difference than spending 3-5 years in an environment in which you will live indifference or dislike.
the former makes one into a happy persona that will sail easily through life, the latter makes one into an automaton.
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You know if Yale and Harvard students were the ones that disliked the DMCA, it'd be repealed when they got into power. Unfortunally, it's Stanford, so the tech geniuses will instead make holes in the security system 'on accident' that allows the coolness.
They are punishing students for being ACCUSED. you dont need to be "Caught". and the accuser is riaa.
little different than spanish inquisition eh ?
Read radical news here
Stanford's "budding lawyers" are quite likely hoping to get jobs with firms that would represent the *AA's and similar big-money interests.
On the other hand, being able to successfully take on the RIAA would likely result in a myriad of job offers....
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
"Research is paid for by outside companies which ARE concerned about their IP. A company will not want to be associated with a 'pirate' university."
Another case where the argument that privatization yields the best outcome in any given situation falls flat on its face. I hope when these students are getting these fines they realize that it's indirectly because of people who claim government is "bad" and private investment is "good."
You should be basing your college choices on three things, and only three things: a) quality of education, b) reputation in your chosen field, and c) networking opportunities.
d) whether you are accepted.
The first rule of usenet...
(it's oosnetyea in pig latin, isn't it?)
Which reminds me...wtf is everthing doing in boneless? Is there some inside joke I missed when I was offline in the late 90s?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If you think the campus environment is full of jerks or sheep then it really doesn't make much sense to build the foundation of your professional network there. You want to do that in a place where YOU THINK YOU FIT IN. You don't want to transform that lame social network that you build at LAME U into something that will follow you for the rest of your life.
That's basically what your telling the OP will happen.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I wonder if its possible for the students to get internet access through another party. I know it is in my area. If you live on campus its a little bit harder and you might have to use something like ClearWire even thought the speeds aren't so good, or the commercial area next to campus is an endless network of free wifi. Most of the nextworks have little to no control over anything.
When I was in college (not to long ago) at the University of Washington they had the finest internal network of pirated files I have ever seen. Everyone had at least a T-1 connection. You didn't even have to download the files, you could just play them from whatever box they were stored on. So yea sure, it was massive piracy and at the time most people never gave it a second thought. College kids are little animals and I think the crusade is a waste of time. They will get the content if they want it and I wouldn't assume that this is stuff they would normally be paying for.
I agree that Stanford is being monumentaly stupid. But its not just Stanford. If most universities ignored the RIAA then the idea of a pirate university wouldn't mean a whole lot. Yes corporations sponser universities in many ways but if the RIAA is hurting so bad from piracy then their corporate sponsorship is becoming increasingly worthless. Prety soon they are going to ask for a subsidy or tax if they aren't getting one already. A smart capitalist society should be able to take advantage of this. We are trying to protect a dinosaur because we see the resources it has now not the resources it will have in the future.
I sure hope you don't write customer-facing documentation...
Besides which, there are several things about a campus that will affect performance even not including a student's feelings. How far is the library from the dormitories? How about classrooms and lecture halls? What about facilities for exercise, since it's been demonstrated that students who exercise regularly perform better than those who don't?
What about shared experiences with other students? This is, after all, a place where networking comes into play, and a nice campus is far more conducive to interaction with others. People who have negative views of their alma mater (to which a mediocre campus could contribute) are far less likely to reach a hand out to another alum.
In short, I think a nice campus contributes more than you think to the ability of a student to profit from their college experience, even in the long term.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If you forget your college experience within a couple of years of graduating, it obvioulsy didn't scar you deeply enough to make a difference.
I did my undergrad at CalTech. I'll never forget. I still break out in goosebumps and my mouth goes dry every time I hear "The Ride of the Valkyries." I just finished my first year of law school, and it was like tiddlywinks compared to Tech.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
"If you think the campus environment is full of jerks or sheep then it really doesn't make much sense to build the foundation of your professional network there."
Sure it does. 16000 jerks in finance majors, 4000 sheep in political science, but 200 computer science majors and 15 math majors can still make a respectable "foundation." You don't need raw numbers, you need quality.
While I can see why you'd say that, I can't agree. Stanford aren't doing their students any favors by bowing to the whims of the RIAA based on their false/non-existent evidence. Until the RIAA actually proves it has a case, and can reliably track exactly who used what IP on what machine, they have no basis to be giving out legal threats, and therefore Stanford should ignore them, not charge their students absurd fees and pander to the RIAA. This is no better than if Stanford were giving the RIAA lists of random students with a free pass to harass them. This is only a hair's breadth short of Stanford suing their own students based on non-evidence (and it's been demonstrated that the RIAA has none, and their experts are full of shit, though the courts aren't equipped to handle technical cases, which is why nothing is being done to stop their illegal racketeering). The only thing Stanford is teaching by these actions is that they can be bullied into doing anything that random private companies want.
Perhaps it's because when hiring noobs, those pretty pieces of paper which universities give to their graduates are considered by many to be a more reputable proof of skill than an individual's claim of being self-taught.
unsigned int question = 0x2B | ~(0x2B)
Everything in balance - some people go through life always looking for the "next" thing.
They spend too much time on grades so they'll get into a good grad school
They spend too much time getting a good degree to get a career started
They spend too much time working to raise up through the company ladder
They spend too much time earning money for their retirement
And in all that, they fail to live in the moment. Those are the prime candidates for a mid-life crisis or ending up old and bitter. people that realize they're getting old and still not having a good time. Then they decide to get that sporty car, dress up like a youngster and try to score with the college coeds.
Three to five years in your prime is a long time - if you don't think you're going to have a good time it's probably not worth it. Consider it a lot like savings, on the one hand you shouldn't send yourself into endless credit card debt, but you're also not supposed to eat ramen noodles and water 24/7/365 to minimize your student loans.
Remember, your life isn't ranked at the finish line. The quality of life is the sum of all parts of your life, which of course means you shouldn't blow your future but you shouldn't ignore the present either. Of course in the short term most of have bad times and boring times from time to time. But in the long run, if you have a good life and the outlook of a decent life go for it. If that's an either/or, stop up and think again...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This scenario they've constructed puts the burden on the student. I have a better idea.
Scrap the 48-hour response-time thing. If the student is on vacation or away this is crazy.
When a DMCA notice is received, start logging packet headers. Put it on secure system, accessible by only one or two trusted employees, and wait.
When the student is available, figure out what's going on. If the student is breaking the law, he's on his own. Make him pay the fee and send along the dumps to law enforcement.
If the student claims innocence, work with him to review the logs. He might be trojaned and you can help him fix the problem. If it's clear that he's lying, see above.
If he's innocent, delete the logs immediately and permanently from all media. Make a note of the costs associated with handling the bogus DMCA claim and bill the notifying party for the resources involved, the manpower, the network infrastructure required to monitor, and the *student's* time to deal with this. If the bill is unpaid, file a lawsuit to collect damages and legal fees. Since they're in the top 25 they can probably group these bills together.
The current system implicitly assumes the students are criminals, and that's ethically indefensible. The excuse for this will be recovering costs, but get your costs back where they originate, don't foist it off on students who typically can't afford to be there in the first place.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If you attended to a top tier school, I'd have to agree with this.
And for the love of Pete, it's "college" not "collage".
If you're not infringing and the complaint is in error, you contact the complainant within 48 hours to tell them so, and you're still golden
but the problem is that you are immediately cut off on the 2nd one, before you even have a chance to refute it, appearently (judging from the policy document) even if the 1st one was completely without merit.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
"The annual US News & World Report college rankings place five Stanford Engineering departments/programs in the top two: Aeronautics & astronautics (#1), computer science (#2), electrical engineering (#2), mechanical engineering (#1), and the environmental engineering program within the civil and environmental engineering department (#1). Stanford holds four top six rankings: Civil engineering (#3), chemical engineering (#6), materials science and engineering (#6), the industrial engineering program in the management science & engineering department (#5). The Department of Bioengineering, which enrolled its first students in Sept. 2004, ranks highly as well (#12). Stanford Engineering as a school is ranked #2 in the country"
Yeah, its a liberal arts school.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
Have you considered that maybe not all universities are like the one that you're familiar with? In fact, I'd be willing to bet that you're not even very familiar with the majority of the program that particular university offers, if any at all. Your tunnel vision appears to be set to "super-narrow" mode.
I agree that it's stupid to pick a school based on whether you can download movies and music. But at the same time, I don't see school as being as important as you make it out to be.
I've been out of school for 3 years now, and my degree and schooling are already ignored at job interviews. They want me to have them, but they're 100x more concerned about real on the job experience. Having a degree was helpful for the first two jobs after college. From what I've seen, going to a fancy school only impresses morons.
I suppose that at the expensive schools, you meet more people willing to offer you jobs based on the fact that you went to $EXPENSIVE_SCHOOL together. I'm sure that's very nice, but I prefer being qualified for a job rather than using "connections".
Oh, wait. I didn't read the fine article.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
Which university did you graduate from, and did it have an English department?
What, they didn't teach contractions and possessives in your high school?
It's a game of numbers. There are only approximately 17000 people at Stanford. Assuming they're all law students (they're not) that might put them on even numbers with the Goons. However the students have to go to class, and pay bills, not so with the other side.
I am calling BullShit! 17,000 lawyers assuming they each only made $60,000 a year comes to $1.2 billion in legal fees. according to the www.riaa.com website the member companies only shipped 634 million retail units last year for a total value of $10,477,000,000. They would have given up 10% of there gorse. I would venture to guess that they have no more than 200 lawyers and maybe (I stress maybe) have 400 legal aides (The people that do the paperwork and filings) With those numbers the Stanford legal class with the professors could have a lot of fun and put up one hell of a fight! Win or loose becomes less important as the students could file individually with the professors helping them as need. Make it all part of the class work and give a grade based on the outcome. A+ if you win and the RIAA is ordered to pay! If they loose it is doubtful that the RIAA lawyers would push for legal fees as they DO NOT want that precedent set!
Now I feel like a doofus, because I completely misread that. You're absolutely right, and as easy as the DMCA is to abuse, that is ridiculous. I'll defend Stanford's right to demand compensation from people who cost them money because they won't deal with their own problems, but not from people who cost them money just because they're repeatedly fingered. That's not just guilty until proven innocent, it's guilty until you pay your bureaucracy bill.
- As other posters have pointed out, 48 hours is very short. Think weekends, school holidays, or just a very busy period where you don't read your e-mail instantly
- No such 48-hours grace period for second offense (which may actually be about the same file, if you've got a stubborn accuser...)
- Even the third complaint, resulting in dire consequences for the student, is still only an accusation, not a proof of guilt.
Maybe we should trawl Stanford's student web pages, and if we notice pages of kids of influential people, just file bogus DMCA complaints. That should get the message across pretty fast!I was the syadmin at a private college for a few years, but I occasionally wore the network admin hat as well. >50% of DMCA notices we received were outright invalid. They referred to ip address that we owned which weren't even in use, "internal ip addresses" that didn't exist, etc. The majority of my time spent dealing with DMCA notices wasn't spent tracking down offenders, it was spent verifying that a given address wasn't in use, and then responding to that effect.
Plus, even being a lawyer doesn't always help. The dean of Stanford's law school rather famously failed the California Bar Exam a year and a half ago.
"maybe if I'd gone to a different school, I'd have a better job, more friends and more money right now..."
Or how about dropping out of highschool, partying for 10 years and then getting into tech with an investment of $150.00 in books from borders?
How does that work into your equation?
Let's see... I have no "job" because I'm a self employed IT Consultant for startups and have been for several years.
I have parties at my loft every week and know most the bartenders in SF well enough that my tab is usuallly about half of what it should be.
Ohhh and I make well into the 6 figure range, working on making that into 7 figures.
And I'm 34.
But you're right... I lay awake crying at night because if only I'd gone to MIT I could have spent over $100,000.00 for a piece of paper, have some 9-5 job at some boring tech company and make about half of what I make and all my friends would be super cool programmers who'd bring on the babes with their slick urban style.
But yes, I am an exception to the rule.
Because I make my own rules.
Academics don't have a choice. They have to go with "reputable" publishers for journals and books because that's what they get evaluated by. Self-publishing or on-line journals just don't count in many disciplines. And very few academics make any significant royalties from publishing, even textbooks.
Neither did you. Where's "Standford"?
i am a soviet space shuttle
"Mod parent up". One of the best responses I've read on this thread.
drive-by surf wirelessly for that media stuff. kill starbucks instead.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I concur - and have more to add. Ultimately, the college education you get starts to level out. Sure, Harvard might open some doors the first year out of college, but the 5th year out of college, everyone's going to be looking at the past five years. Is academic reputation important? Absolutely. But you know what's more important? Being in an environment where you can A) Bring your skills to the table, B) Be comfortable, C) Try out many new things without feeling threatened.
While avoiding Stanford for DMCA reasons may ultimately be a trivial reason, it does show that Stanford puts it's own interests above the education and well being of it's students. Do you really think that this place will have good academic counciling, will encourage you to study what you find interest in, etc.?
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
So now Stanford is extorting from the students.
They would simply tell the RIAA to get bent.
Everyone violates copyright on internet. That's what it's for.
Thank you, but see the response from compro01. My opinion was actually based on a misunderstanding of the policy as stated, and I don't completely stand by it. I think Stanford's policy is close to fair. Escalating the fee for repeat offenses is fine, but receiving a DMCA notice is not an offense, even if it does cost Stanford money. Ignoring one is. If they equate receiving two complaints with proof of infringement and remove a user from their network with no recourse but to pay, what they're basically saying is, "We believe anything a DMCA notice says twice because it means we can take money from you." They need to give any user a fair chance to respond to accusations before fining them $500 or $1,000. We've seen time and time again how bogus some of these notices can be. If, given a fair chance, they don't respond, charge 'em whatever you want.
The reason Stanford, and everyone else, should block these attempts is that private copying has always been below the notice of copyright law, and it should stay that way.
How is private copying any more similar to plagiarism than, say, elephant hunting?
There's absolutely nothing dishonest about ignoring copyright. No one was ever hassled for copying cassette tapes, why should the internet be different?
Whether guilty or not, the RIAA will challenge the student to trial-by-wealth.
Stanford should be *ignoring* the DMCA notices, pointing out that they're just an ISP.
Responding risks having your personal identification sent to the RIAA, who will then challenge you to a trial by wealth.
And it really doesn't matter as an undergrad.
It won't matter what school you went to, unless you're incompetent and that's all you have going for you.
Would..should..could...
The unfortunate truth is that Stanford is legally required to deal with these complaints. In the case of Stanford, that meant adding 3 full time positions. I'd wager that it probably cost more than $100,000 per year ($33k per position is seriously low-balling when you consider benefits that have to be paid out to full-timers). So what do you do? Pass that on to the entire student body, even though a good percentage of them probably isn't pirating? Or do you pass it on to the accused who, while they aren't definitely pirating, are definitely pretty likely to be. Other people have posted that the accuracy of these complaints tends to be very high, so the likelihood of mis-fining someone is probably pretty low, and I'd imagine that you could make appeals in such cases.
The truth is, most people will probably roll over and pay the fine, just like they roll over and pay the RIAA, and for mostly the same reasons: they know that they did it and got caught.
Some group of savvy students simply needs to start spamming the Stanford president (or other relevant authority figure) with baseless DMCA notices, and do it in a fashion that gets noticed publicly. Near as I can tell, it would be easy to do anonymously (because ANYONE can get a copyright), and maybe it would clue some people in as to why _checking_ whether the complaint is valid might be important.
Could be a fun project for some annoyed and intrepid college students.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
I'll ignorantly assume, you or your parents can afford reconnection fees.
y Id=6165657
Don't get me wrong, but it's not like Stanford is known for standing up for high principle.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
If a monkey throws its crap at you once, then most likely it's going to do it again.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Stanford might have the "clout to ignore RIAA", but why should they use their clout in that way? Stanford isn't about defending piracy, and shouldn't waste political capital on such nonsense.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I suppose you're a lawyer then? If Stanford is legally required to comply with any wishes of the RIAA, why is it that other universities have REFUSED to comply. Sounds like BS to me.
Yeah, and as your post implies, they also aren't about defending their students, either.
What is to stop someone from just faking DMCA violation notices from the *AA to every IP address on the network? Sending them randomly and changing the content each time?
Or what about just sending DMCA violation notices to Tommy the frat guy you hate so much each week? That would just put a log of strain on students.
I think this is a bad idea.
Your implication that 3-5 years of campus life means a hill of beans to the 50-60 years you're likely to spend afterwards suggests to me that you're a recent graduate, if even that.
Must be good to be able to see the future, and know how long you're going to live. Stats are just stats. Any given day might be your last. If you're sacrificing your youth - few would argue against those being your best years - in the hope of something better down the track with no regard to how you're living now, I'd not call that wise, and I don't think you should be giving such advice.
For the parent social interaction is important. It's his life and he should work out what trade offs he wants to make in the full knowledge that there are consequences for those trade offs. Anything less is self-imposed slavery.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
None of this relieves the university of the legal responsibility to respond to the complaints--it simply mitigates damage and/or liklihood of an actual suit being brought to court. The university can weigh all of this in their decision. They may also weigh bad press for "supporting copyright infringement", apparent disregard for laws, promoting disregard for laws, being a good citizen, politics (state schools generally have to abide by the state leaders, and business-friendly states might put a lot of pressure on the school to comply), etc.
So no, it's not really BS. It's a legal obligation that some universities ignore.
Chico State has required that students pay a reconnect fee for about a year and a half now. If you want you can still come into the library and use one of the public computers, but if not you have to pay some 25 dollars to reconnect. It makes sense considering that if a campus computer continues to share copyrighted material, the school gets in trouble for it. The only reason schools do this is to cover their back. I personally don't want student fees to be raised because they have to pay the riaa or mpaa for lawsuits made against the for sharing copyrighted materials...
If Booz Allen is paying $170k to someone who can't differentiate "tier" from "tear" or "college" from "collage," then I sure as hell won't send any business their way!
Which might be why you are not making that kind of money ;-)
(1a) hack all pc's through the dormitory -or- .. the fall of the great RIAA who was ever in (c)ontrol over our kids.
(1b) ask friends to use their pc, install a proxy or ftp server -or-
(1c) use as gateway; wardrive; use insecure proxies and wireless spots -or-
(1d) make a point by doing this in mass-group (would Stanford really attack dozens of students at once ?)
(2) use these pc's and gateways to trade files with similar filenames alike britney_spears_blaba.mp3
(3) all students get disconnected for bogus claims even for 2nd and 3rd time
(4) war inbetween students and administration for bogus claims and dozens of disconnects
(5) profit or
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
And you'd be wrong. Having lectured there and at several other schools has given me some insight beyond, 'tunnel vision'.
-FL
Just because the world believes employment must only work in one particular way doesn't make it true. Apprenticeship is a perfectly valid way to get into a field, and in my experience, it leads to excellent work and powerful connections, and it's a helluva lot faster than the normal system. --Not to mention you don't have to rack up huge student debt.
-FL