Many Universities Spending $100K/Year Enforcing P2P Rules

Scott Jaschik writes "A new study documents just how much money colleges are spending on enforcing P2P rules through software license fees, hardware, and other costs. Many private universities are spending more than $100,000 a year — a major allocation of funds. An article in Inside Higher Ed explains the study and its findings."

Comments

Or...

[jellomizer]

They could use the money and get more bandwidth.

Re:Or...

[Brian Gordon]

You try living at college for 4 years without using the internet for anything personal.

Re:Or...

[Dan667]

Nice call there, except not everyone is stealing when they use the internet. If you are doing any work on big data projects like astrophysics, etc you would use a lot of bandwidth

Sony, EMI, Warner Bros, and Universal are stealing from Education, Tax Payers, and Musicians. Feel free to spread that.

Re:Or...

[lattyware]

So, you are saying everyone using more than 128k is a pirate?
Yeah. I don't agree.

That's only 1 FTE

[petes_PoV]

$100k buys you about one full time person. When you add in all the extra costs (healthcare, faciities etc) on top of their pay.

On that basis it's hard to see how they could do a proper job for less.

Re:That's only 1 FTE

[Free the Cowards]

The question is not whether they could do a proper job for less. The question is whether they should be doing this job at all.

Re:Numbers are fun

[Etrias]

In a way, $100,000 isn't much for a university...any university really. Salary costs alone would eat up this amount quickly.

No, this $100,000 is likely coming out of small campus programs who are lucky to have a budget. If it's being routed out of the overall tech budget, chances are that's the computer lab upgrade budget or other small, but needed programs that could really use that money. Seems a shame that money isn't being used better.

Re:Pennies in Legal Compliance

[gooman]

the average slashdot reader continues to buy new DVD's and pay absurd monthly video content fees that directly support the RIAA

Those purchases directly support the MPAA. Just as evil, but a different group.

Re:Numbers are fun

[dreamchaser]

My wife has worked for more than one University and let me tell you that the waste across the board is horrendous. This is just a drop in the bucket but yet another example of short sighted wasteful spending. Meanwhile, tuition continues to go up at a rate that greatly outpaces core inflation.

Exactly.

[plasmacutter]

Colleges are put in the very uncomfortable position of ISP for their residential students.

and they should behave like an ISP and stop filtering crap for unrelated corporate interests.

Just follow the law and provide information if served with proper papers, and let the students *gasp*, make their own choices and take responsibility for them.

Re:Exactly.

[plasmacutter]

this is not true with universities. They have massive internet throughput, and if they apply DSL speed policies to each residence hall connection, there would be no issue with bandwidth hogs.

As for the other ISP's used in your rationalization, they need to INCREASE.. THEIR... CAPACITY. You don't see any other manufacturer engage in rationing when they reach plant capacity. They add wings to their plant or build a new one.

Not to mention that we have to respond to p2p notices. At our school, we get so many notices that one full-time staffer (at $40k/year salary--with benefits, the cost goes up to around $55-60k/year) devoted to working with issues related to the DMCA. That's not insignificant.

100k a year to censor student lines and deny them the right to civil disobedience (and to face the possible consequences thereof) against abusive corporate interests, or a couple more staff members. Hmm..

Did your university also refuse to provide computer networks because that would require you hire IT staff?

How about sports fields because you'd have to increase grounds keeping budgets?

What makes the MAFIAA so special. Welcome to the real world where costs increase occasionally.

If we didn't discourage p2p using technological means, it may well require more staff, as I assume that the notifications would increase.

Oh NO!! you'd have to do your jobs instead of screwing the students on the MAFIAA's behest!!!

And most of the people who have to do the grunt work of the DMCA enforcement at the university level (again, at least here) really hate every aspect of dealing with it, and really wish that the RIAA/MPAA would just go away.

So instead, you subject your students to the great firewall of china at their behest, inconveniencing them much more (especially wow players) than your staff, who should be doing their jobs. (the jobs people like me paid 30k/yr after aid to do)

Re:Obligatory quote, I suppose

[theaveng]

Good post.

Another example on a more-personal level: I have a credit card that gives me 5% off gasoline and food. It's only ~50 cents per fillup or 5 cents per hamburger, which is no big deal, but those pennies quickly accumulate. In just this year alone, I've received $300 in rebates. That's enough money to pay three months worth of electricity bills.

Small amounts add-up to big amounts. Small wastes add-up to huge wastes & internal corruption.

Real problem is absurdity

[jasmak]

I recently graduated from Penn State and the real problem lies with the fact that the people in charge of discipline action have no idea what they are doing. They are not special tech administrators but instead send you to the Judicial affairs office for violations. I had my internet turned off for 2 weeks and could have gotten a disciplinary action from the school (such as suspension, expulsion, etc) because someone had apparently downloaded the shareware version of Dreamweaver from me. Yes I am talking about the 30 day trial. Until you get administrators that understand technology, you cannot be effective in this fight against student rights.