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

Re:Or...

[theaveng]

>>>there is no practical way for students to "get their own bloody network".

Sure there is. Move off-campus and buy internet from a private company like Comcast or Cox or Verizon. Of course that also means you'd have to pay your own bills, which is quite a shocker for someone used to getting free stuff, but hey! You gotta grow up sometime.

Or you could stay in the dorm, as I did, and sacrifice some things. I never had anything faster than 28 kbit/s when I was in the dorm, and I survived just fine. No free cable television either. Or heat; I know they had the heat turned-on but it was so miniscule, I still had to stay fully-dressed to keep warm.

You said in high school you wanted to "get out in the real world". Well, this is it. It means not always getting what you want, unless you're willing to pay for it. It also means sometimes you have to obey the landlord's wishes, because it's his property.

Re:Or...

[theaveng]

>>>a music student trying to download something from a P2P network for the sole purpose of writing a report?

Why can't you just go BUY the music like everybody else? Yeah I know. Shocking concept. But the people behind the music deserve to get paid; not stolen. A music student should understand that concept better than anyone else, since he/she will soon be relying on sales for income too.

I said earlier that a simple solution is just to limit connections to 128 kbit/s. It would still allow students to access email, online radio, or class websites, but the slow speed would discourage them from downloading an illegal 50 gigabyte Bluray rip (~40 day transfer time). The imposed speed limit would make the need for university policing very minimal, since P2P theft would be next-to-impossible.

Re:Or...

[theaveng]

>>>when your OS provider decides to push a 300 Megabyte upgrade at you, what do you do?

The first thing I'd do is - stop whining. I've downloaded Windows updates over 50 kbit/s phoneline. It takes a few hours, but it's still possible to do it. At 128k your very unrealistic example (since most updates are only 5-10 megabyte chunks) takes five hours. Do it overnight while you're sleeping, or out partying. Or else do it at your parents house. Or get off-campus housing. (Or don't bother since most Windows updates are trash anyway.)

>
>>>128K also isn't enough for live video. Youtube extensively buffers at that speed...
>

I watch youtube over a phoneline connection. I wait for the buffering to fill halfway, and then I press play to watch the video. Don't act like it's not possible to do.