February 5, 2007
U. of Missouri at Columbia Bans Peer-to-Peer Networking
In an attempt to crack down on music and movie piracy, the University of Missouri at Columbia has decided to block students from using peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, the Missourian reports.
What makes the university’s decision interesting is that Missouri had previously tried to curtail piracy without completely cutting out its students peer-to-peer access. Before the new policy took effect, students were allowed to use file-swapping services between midnight and 5 a.m. But that restriction didn’t seem to deter students from sharing songs and movies, so campus officials decided to up the ante.
Some college administrators will undoubtedly bristle at the notion of using such brute force to keep piracy in check. But if a college just wants to get out from under those pesky DMCA notices, subtler methods might not work. Any suggestions for how colleges can restrict peer-to-peer access without threatening to tread on academic freedom? —Brock Read
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At the University of Auckland (New Zealand) we have a strict policy on copyright infringement. The user of any system detected using P2P file sharing software on the academic network receives a standard letter laying out the university’s policies and informing them that if their usage is legitimate (i.e. does not breach any copyright ) then they must inform the security team in writing explaining what they are doing. In practice there are a few poeple (mostly IT support staff) who use BT to get software and that’s it for legit use. After the initial flush of notices I now issue at most one a week — usually to new staff or grad students, or occasionally folk who have let their kid’s play on the computer to keep them intertained ;)
The folk who manage the residential network decided that it would be simpler to simply ban p2p file sharing altogether. The only people who have really complained are those who play WoW and want to download patches by BT (we point out that there are other sources for the patches).
We are very pleased with how our policy has worked over the last two years and yes we did have someone who had a legit use for limewire ;)
One group in the business school was studying software piracy and I picked up their limewire traffic. They were examining indexes of the limewire network to see how many of their list of software packages were available for download.
— Russell Fulton Feb 6, 01:27 AM #
It seems to me that like the comment above, there is little legitimate use for most people using P2P.
If there is a legitimate need, are there not ways of facilitating specific needs and granting access to those who need it?
I don’t see banning P2P as limiting academic freedom in any way. In fact, the reduction in traffic may actually help those with real bandwidth needs, and as such support academics.
— MTM Feb 6, 01:01 PM #
In 2004 we saw a marked increase in the number of DMCA notices. We established a procedure to track the source of the offending responsible port and then tracked down the individual(s) assigned to the port’s location. The majority of the offenses were, naturally, coming from student residential facilities.
In an effort to educate students of the issues involved, we placed a series of articles in the student newspaper concerning the “appropriate use standards” that should be followed as well as information on current copyright laws and protections. This had minimal impact. We also invited students to visit with the CIO for face to face discussions which proved more effective and instructive as most students are unaware of the copyrights.
The campus faculty and administration then engaged in a conversation on the implications of restricting P2P activity on our network. The result was an informed recommendation to severely limit P2P access and require requests for access to be submitted for legitimate file-sharing sites.
Our notices decreased by 100 percent, network congestion was eliminated in the ResNet, and bandwidth utilization dropped by 20-30 percent allowing increased responsiveness for more traditional network usage.
There was no great uproar about academic freedom being threatened, particularly when we worked with the university community to site-by-site allow legitimate sources of information to be utilized. Even the gamers were happy.
Following a process to effectively manage the network and its traffic supporting your mission along with open dialogue with campus stakeholders worked well in developing a solution.
— T. Carnwath Feb 8, 01:42 PM #