To keep their networks from being overrun by movie downloaders and other peer-to-peer pirates, a number of colleges have restricted students to weekly download quotas. Since the limits are usually set quite liberally — in theory, only the most prolific downloaders should run afoul of the rules — they’ve usually managed to avoid frustrating students.
But that may not be the case at Rutgers University. Rutgers’s student newspaper, The Daily Targum, has taken on the mantle for campus file sharers, arguing that the university’s bandwidth quotas are a wee bit too restrictive.
Rutgers allows students weekly totals of 4GB of downloads and roughly 500MB of uploads — amounts that should allow a decent amount of movie watching and song swapping. But the Targum argues, quite cleverly, that the bandwidth restriction unfairly punishes students who actually use the Web for, y’know, actual research: If you are a student who studies a subject where it is necessary to regularly transfer large media files over the Internet, you are therefore limited in engaging in an equal use of leisurely Internet usage as your fellow students. So it should also be understood that students deserve not only equal access to academic materials, but recreational materials as well.
Although Rutgers officials would likely argue that 4GB allows for plenty of academic and leisurely downloading, The Targum‘s point seems like a a fair one. Should colleges with bandwidth quotas offer exemptions to students who download for class? Do any institutions do this already? —Brock Read
