The University is planning to employ new measures this fall — as well as harsher penalties ­ to enforce anti-piracy rules and make sure file sharing doesn’t clog network bandwidth.
This past year, University officials began punishing students who shared copyright files, such as movies and MP3s, in an effort to appease complaints from the music and movie industries and solve bandwidth problems that resulted from mass sharing. Punishment for violating the University policy was a temporary loss of Internet access and a process for getting it back, such as writing a paper on piracy.
Since students were uninformed about the sharing policy, however, both ResNet and the Student Judicial Affairs office were lenient, and no students lost their privileges for the entire year.
This year, things will change.
In an effort to better inform students and to enforce anti-piracy policy this fall, ResNet plans to make a few preemptive measures, including putting up signs in residence halls and having resident assistants detail rules during mandatory residence hall meetings.
Student Judicial Affairs Director Chris Loschiavo said returning students, especially those who violated the policy last year, will see harsher consequences for sharing, starting with more lengthy port shut-off periods.
“We haven’t decided all the preventative measures yet,” he said.
Loschiavo added that resident staff will highlight the policy, and posters most likely be put on residence hall walls to begin
the prevention.
Last year the Computing Center received $720,000 worth of hardware from Intel that allows the University to give bandwidth priority to students.
The “traffic shaper” can set priority for certain ports and slow down the connection of those who are sharing copyright files. Students who use the network for legal purposes will get higher priority.
ResNet is also using hardware monitoring systems designed to detect the type of files that are being downloaded or uploaded, but the program will not detect the names of files being downloaded.
These anti-piracy procedures are new, as the University hasn’t always discouraged file-sharing programs.
In October 2000, the University joined with 20 other universities in refusing to ban the popular music-sharing program Napster. Since then, many other software-sharing clients, including Morpheus and LimeWire, have become popular ways to get copyright files.
Computing Services Coordinator Norm Myers attributes the sudden change in policy both to legal aspects and bandwidth.
“As a University, we are not liable if you download (copyright material), but we are liable if we see you sharing and don’t try to do anything about it,” he said. The University did try and stop illegal file sharing this past fall when five students — four from Bean and one from Hamilton — had their network access suspended. The students were associated with a group of 15 students who had been caught downloading copyright files.
Myers also said the influx of file sharing that resulted from file-sharing programs wasted bandwidth and forced University Network Services to stop file sharing.
“(This year) there will be less tolerance for people who hog the line,” he said.