more on Ohio University announces changes in file-sharing policies

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Paul Levy <PLEVY () citizen org>
Date: April 27, 2007 10:46:59 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Ohio University announces changes in file- 
sharing policies

"illegal" can mean many things.

The sale of prohibited drugs is a felony.  Massive file sharing of  
copyrighted is a violation of civilly enforceable rights of the  
copyright holder, but is it a crime?

Defamation, sexual harassment, and invasions of privacy all violate  
civilly enforceable rights of their victims, and let us hypothesize  
that college students's emails commonly include statements that could  
be actionable if their victims found out about them and wanted to  
file suit.  But I think we would generally think it improper if the  
government routinely inspected emails in the hope of finding  
violations of those civil norms.


Paul Alan Levy
Public Citizen Litigation Group
1600 - 20th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 588-1000
http://www.citizen.org/litigation

>>> David Farber <dave () farber net> 4/27/2007 9:49 AM >>>


Begin forwarded message:

From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>
Date: April 27, 2007 9:20:53 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>, Brett Glass
<brett () lariat net>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Ohio University announces changes in file-
sharing policies

On Apr 27, 2007, at 7:49 AM, David Farber wrote:
> At 09:22 AM 4/26/2007, David Reed wrote:
>
>> It would be interesting to know whether Ohio University, an  
agency of
>> the state, is inspecting the content of packets being sent between
>> ordinary citizens in its enforcement activities in this regard.
>
> Any facilities-based Internet provider -- public or private -- is
> required by CALEA to be able to monitor traffic. And any responsible
> ISP should be able to monitor his or her network for abuse. Media
> piracy software (sometimes called "P2P" software by people who wish
> to conflate it with legitimate software that operates in a peer to
> peer mode) abuses the network, often without the consent of the user
> who installed it. Universities have the right, and in fact an
> obligation,
> to prohibit crimes on campus. And any ISP -- especially a University,
> where much network abuse occurs -- is therefore fully within its
> rights
> to prohibit abuse of the network.

Universities have the right, and in fact an obligation to prohibit
crimes on campus.

Many drug dealers abuse the trust of the university, selling drugs
out of their dorm rooms, often without the consent or even knowledge
of their roommates.  They carry drugs and paraphernalia in their
backpacks with their university books and supplies.

Any police-person - especially a University, where much drug dealing
occurs - is therefore fully within its rights to prohibit such sales.


Okie, I think we're agreed that illegal file sharing & drug dealing
are both illegal.  Since Mr. Glass is suggesting that you should be
allowed to open and inspect random packets, just in case they are
"doing bad thing", I was wondering what his views are on opening
random dorm rooms or backpacks are?  How about opening mail to check
for drug money or instructions, or hell, drugs?

Many P2P applications - er sorry, "media piracy software" - packets
look just like other packets.  Brett, are you thinking we should
simply filter popular protocols for this sharing?  How do you tell
between the legit users and the bad ones, since, despite your
implications above, the exact same software, ports, protocols, etc.,
can be used for both?

And why the implication that P2P abuses the network?  Are you upset
that your DSL users are supposed to burst for 30 minutes a day in 30
second increments spread around the evening, when they are actually
doing line-rate 16 hours a day or something?  Is that your definition
of "abuse"?  And would you still call it abuse if I write a popular
piece of freeware and share it off my home computer, generating the
same traffic profile?

--
TTFN,
patrick



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