Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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.
so they get an immediate disconnect with a $500 fee on the second dmca? but what if the 1st one was bogus/wrong/malicious?
But they assume you have the billions that it "costs them" from your alledged piracy. What gets me is that people seem to want to be able to get their content via internet.. So why the hell does the MPAA and riaa not see this as a sign to tell them where to switch their buisness model to. They have switched their business model but not to the right place. They switched it to no better than the mafia give us your lunch money. What i would like to see is Digital Streaming broadcasts of movies where you can buy a viewing ticket and watch it on opening night from your home. The movie theators suck, they are overpriced and i dont wanna sit next to some stinky person who talks on the cell phone.
string sig = llGetSig("dimentox"); llSay(0,sig);
Next you wont be able to graduate unless you pay your unpaid DMCA notices.
Most schools require a zero balance to graduate.
Being denied net access is one of the principle wrongs of the right to read story. Even today, that is fatal. Witout network access, you can't register for classes. If Stanford has special policies for computers within their network which they deny to computers outside their network all of those services are denied for those "disconnected".
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Read radical news here
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.