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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?
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 $1000 to establish new
privileges.
Fees
Students may pay fees directly to the University within 30 days of the
reconnection; fees remaining unpaid after this time will be added onto monthly
University bills.
Although the purpose of these fees is to discourage piracy and compensate the
University for resources spent dealing with DMCA complaints, for the first year of the
program, the affected departments have agreed that these fees will be transferred to
ASSU's general operating budget to enhance Stanford student activities.
3
Reconnection Fee Effective Date
The imposition of the reconnection fee is the only substantial modification to
Stanford's treatment of DMCA complaints against studen
Of course, they checked to make sure the charges were real before the instituted the fines, right?
I mean, these wouldn't possibly be trumped up charges after all.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Next you wont be able to graduate unless you pay your unpaid DMCA notices.
Most schools require a zero balance to graduate.
Being denied net access is one of the principle wrongs of the right to read story. Even today, that is fatal. Witout network access, you can't register for classes. If Stanford has special policies for computers within their network which they deny to computers outside their network all of those services are denied for those "disconnected".
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm not sure this is even legal. Under the DMCA safe harbor provisions, network operators are supposed to take down material upon receiving notice from a copyright holder. If the customer disputes this, they can provide a counter-notice that the material does not infringe upon copyright. The ISP is then required by law to reinstate service, unless the copyright holder proceeds with a lawsuit.
I don't see any room in this law giving Stanford discretion to make service contingent on receipt of a fee. Of course, IANAL so YMMV.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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!
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.