Five students living in residence halls received a crash course in University ethernet policies Tuesday when they had their network service suspended for violating the University’s policy of acceptable use.
According to Norm Myers, residence hall computing services coordinator, the five students — four of whom live in Bean and one in Hamilton — are part of a larger group of students, 15 in all, who have been caught downloading copyrighted material since the beginning of the term. Most of the material is music and movies in the form of MP3s — the shared-file format that has repeatedly made headlines in the wake of the debate over Napster.
The key to catching students violating the policy, Myers said, was the volume of the bandwidth that they were using for downloads.
“When we see a lot of bandwidth being used, we wonder what’s going on, and why,” Myers said. “A lot of it’s copyrighted material. We’re looking for volume; people who are legally sharing don’t get flagged.”
The University server is equipped with volume monitors, which keep track of the size of downloads, Myers said. If the size repeatedly exceeds the pre-set limits, computing services will attempt to determine the nature of the downloads. If the student is found to be in violation of copyright laws, their service will be suspended. Students wanting to get their service reinstated must contact the Computing Center’s acceptable use officer.
The biggest problem with the policy, Myers said, is that very few students actually know about it. Freshman Ben Frizzle, a resident of Carson Hall, echoes that concern.
“I’m sure there’s a policy,” he said, “but I don’t know what it is.”
However, ignorance of the policy seems to be no defense, and Myers predicted that by the end of the academic year, as much as five percent of the 3,700 ethernet connections that campus housing provides will have been turned off for copyright violations. But he also said that the shut-downs rarely last for more than a few days. By Tuesday afternoon, the majority of the 15 connections that had been suspended since classes began were reinstated.
Myers and Joe St. Sauver, director of user services and network applications, were quick to point out that MP3s and P2Ps can be appropriate in the right circumstances. The file sharing systems only come into conflict with University policy in cases involving copyrighted material.
“A music student might choose to write, play and record an original composition in MP3 format, and that would be fine,” St. Sauver said. “Similarly, peer-to-peer applications are not inherently bad.”
Nor is the sharing of files among friends. Myers pointed out that a local band and its fans could freely distribute its music via MP3 files — as long as no laws were being broken. And in the case of local groups, that isn’t likely to happen.
But there are still limits, of course.
“Obviously, all applications must be used in a way that doesn’t interfere with the University’s primary mission of educating students and conducting research,” St. Sauver said. “And when we’re trying to do that for roughly 20,000 users, people need to use good judgment and be considerate of others.”