Shares too well with others
Illegal file swapping causes problems
Matt Crist
Issue date: 9/21/06 Section: Life
Students engaging in illegal peer-to-peer file sharing are causing problems for universities by taking up large amounts of bandwidth, while placing some legal burdens in the hands of university officials.
Illegal peer-to-peer file sharing takes place when copyrighted material is sent or received from one computer to another without authorization of the copyright owner. Marshall University has taken steps to prevent illegal peer-to-peer file sharing on campus, but the problem still exists.
Monica Brooks, associate dean of libraries, said the problem is widespread, and not only affects Marshall University.
"All universities are having a problem with it because there are often very clever computer users among the student body who use the university Internet system to download materials from other machines quickly," Brooks said.
Illegal peer-to-peer file sharing poses a problem for administrators, who must regulate unlawful student activity on campus computers.
Jon Cutler, associate director of the systems administration, said college students are afforded certain privacy rights that generally protect them against the monitoring of their online activities. However, when a student engages in illegal peer-to-peer file sharing, university officials are often notified and asked to intervene.
"It's a sticky wicket," Cutler said. "There are times when we get a lot of these notifications. Sometimes we get 10, 15, 20 a day. Then, there are times when we get one or two a week."
Despite any legal obstacles that may exist, students who engage in peer-to-peer file sharing can still face legal action.
"Violators have been referred to Judicial Affairs in the past," Brooks said. "Of course, the details regarding individual situations are confidential."
"Students should be aware that even though the violators use our Internet system for illegal downloads, the university is not liable for their actions. We take precautions to avoid this illegal activity and also require that all students sign and adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy. A single violation can result in a fine of $250,000."
The Acceptable Use Policy is available at http://www.marshall.edu/ucs/CS/accptuse.asp.
Another negative result of peer-to-peer file sharing is it consumes bandwidth, which slows down network speed. Therefore, in the residence halls, peer-to-peer file sharing translates into slower network performance.
"It's happening in the residence halls and the sharing of music consumes a lot of network bandwidth, and we get folks complaining, 'Hey the network's slow! What's going on?' Well a lot of what's going on is your next door neighbors are downloading a bunch of movies and its slowing your network down," Cutler said.
There are legal alternatives to doing this, Cutler said.
"There's iTunes and there's Rhapsody and a number of music services that provide music subscriptions, but they're not free," Brooks said. "They cost money, because in the end it isn't free."
Brooks said many schools have attempted to combat peer-to-peer file sharing by subscribing to services similar to iTunes that are legal and tailored to students.
"MU may be exploring this option in the near future with some logical educational enhancements such as the ability to download audio/video lectures, audio books, music reserves, and, or other educational resources via your personal iPod or RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds."
Matt Crist can be contacted at crist6@marshall.edu. |