re: illegal downloading–what are our alternatives?

As you probably know, the LC student body received formal notice of a change in the policy dictating how the school will handle infringement notices it receives from copyright holders.  In the past, I think the policy was basically “tell people to stop.” Now, it seems to be basically “tell people to stop and make them exert minimal effort to prove that they have stopped.”  Seems pretty straightforward to me:

Greetings CAS Students:

My name is Dan Terrio, Chief Technology Officer at Lewis & Clark. I am writing to you today to make you aware some changes in procedures with regards to handling received copyright infringement claims.

If you are not aware, this past fall Congress passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA). The new law includes provisions addressing illegal peer-to-peer file sharing on college and university networks. The law requires regular communication with students about college policies with regards to copyright; a formal plan to effectively combat copyright abuse on the campus network that must include one or more technology-based deterrents; and we must offer alternatives to illegal downloading (and uploading).

The purpose of this message is to let you know what our formal plan is for combating copyright abuse on the LC network. As the institution’s registered digital millennium copyright act agent, I regularly receive (over 10 per week, on average) copyright infringement claims from agencies such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), NBC, HBO, FOX, etc. These infringement claims identify the file name, the time of infringement, and the IP address associated with the infringing activity.

From that IP address we can usually determine the individual on our network that has made that file available for sharing. In the past we had sent email notification to the individual, asking for a reply to confirm receipt and understanding about the infringement claim.

In my observations, most students that I have spoken to about copyright infringement claims, have been unaware that they had been sharing files. There seems to be a misunderstanding that although a peer-to-peer application may used to download files, in most cases, there is a “piece” of the application running all the time, sharing all files on a computer.

It is not the intent of the College to block the use of peer-to-peer software applications, as there are legitimate and legal uses for those applications. However downloading and sharing (freely) copyright protected files does violate federal copyright law.

In light of the requirements of the HEOA, we will begin to use new procedures beginning Monday, March 1.

When an infringement claim is received, if an individual can be associated with the IP address identified in the claim, we will immediately suspend network access until it can be verified at the IT help-desk that the peer-to-peer application/software has been removed or sharing has been turned off. Anyone that has network access suspended will know when he or she logs onto the network, as he or she will be redirected to a webpage explaining the situation and providing information as to how to have network access restored.

Personally, I don’t think these changes are even going to affect the vast majority of us, but I guess we’ll see.  What I think is actually more notable is the barely-mentioned provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act that mandates that schools:

(B) will, to the extent practicable, offer alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property, as determined by the institution in consultation with the chief technology officer or other designated officer of the  institution.’ [link]

So, the obvious question: what action is L&C taking to provide us with an alternative to illegal downloading?  What does that stipulation even mean, legally?

The simple/obvious route would be to say “use hulu.com and go buy a Netflix account,” but is that enough?

I don’t even mean to imply that I agree with the idea that the college owes us something in order to deter us from committing information crimes on our own, but it would seem that the government does… so hook me up.

P.S. If you happen to be one of the students who get caught and lose internet access for awhile, quit using Limewire or public BitTorrent trackers and do some research (and then never pirate anything ever again).