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Security Spotlight

P2P File Sharing on Campus: The Battle Isn't Over

By: Doug Gale

2/8/2008

Campus Computing Survey), our students will continue to be targeted by the RIAA. In a litigious world, campuses must have strong policies and procedures addressing P2P file sharing. Samples of the policies and procedures adopted by other institutions can be found at connect.educause.edu.

In addition to the harassing letters the RIAA now sends to students, if they were to be successful in their contention that it is illegal for someone to transfer music from a CD they own to their own computer, it would have huge implications for the concept of "fair use." Those implications range from TiVo, which allows you to record a TV show to watch later at your own convenience, to photocopiers in our libraries. This court case should be on every university's radar screen.

2. The legislative battles aren't over (Exhibit 5). After years of characterizing college students as digital pirates and campus administrators as unconcerned, the RIAA and MPAA managed to insert language in "The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007" that targets peer to peer (P2P) file sharing of copyrighted digital content, e.g. movies and music, on campus networks. While the language does not specify penalties, the intent and direction are clear. The recording industry wants colleges and universities to install filtering mechanisms on their campus networks that impede P2P file sharing. Unfortunately, installing filtering mechanisms may be costly and impede the many legitimate uses of P2P file sharing.

Colleges and universities need to work closely with their national organizations to monitor and influence pending legislation, such as H.R. 4137. Our legislators need to understand that P2P file sharing of copyrighted material is a broad consumer problem, not just a higher education problem. College students accounted for less that 4 percent of the 8,400 "John Doe" lawsuits filed by the RIAA in 2004 and 2005 for illegal downloading. Our legislators also need to understand that P2P has myriad legitimate educational applications.

3. That battle for the hearts and minds of the customer is over. The RIAA reminds me of Cervantes' Don Quixote, a would-be knight who mistakes windmills for giants in his quest to fight injustice and has become a metaphor of fighting for lost causes. The deal Universal struck with Nokia (Exhibit 6) is tacit admission that music has to be given away for free or close to free on the Internet (Exhibits 1 and 2).

But transitioning to new business models is a leap into the unknown, which the recording industry will make with great reluctance. Like any animal that is wounded and cornered, the recording industry will be aggressive and unpredictable. (See Exhibit 4.) They are fighting for survival.

The recording industry would do well to ponder the poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


Doug Gale is president of Information Technology Associates LLC (http://www.itassociates.org), an IT consultancy specializing in higher education. He has more than 30 years of experience in higher education as a faculty member, CIO, and research administrator. He can be reached at dgale@itassociates.org.