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Harvey Axlerod serves as UB's computer discipline officer, responsible for all aspects of computer policy, including enforcement, investigation, education and evaluation. He has been a member of the UB community since 1963, when he enrolled as a freshman.
What is peer-to-peer file-sharing?
Peer-to peer (p-2-p) file-sharing is software designed to distribute resources required when large numbers of files are shared among millions of people. These resources include memory and on-line accessibility. Peers subscribe to a p-2-p service, which lists available files and directs them to peers who have the files stored. Peers then allow others to access their hard drives to further distribute files. This also provides a certain redundancy, as multiple copies of the same file are available via many users. It is a very clever use of the Internet.
How prevalent is it at UB?
Based on my workload and on anecdotal conversations with other colleges, I would say we are about as heavy as others. We don't monitor our networks for content. We do limit our outbound p-2-p network traffic so that it doesn't adversely affect our bandwidth.
Theft is a harsh word—is file-sharing of music or movies really stealing? How does it differ from passing around a CD or a DVD?
File-sharing isn't theft unless it involves copyrighted materials. If you were to share movie trailers, which are intended to be free teasers, that's OK. I doubt that sharing TV commercials would cause a problem, given a similar intent. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), file-sharing of copyrighted materials is a civil violation, with penalties of up to $150,000 per copyright violation! The theory is that the magnitude of the sharing creates a financial hardship for the copyright holders, while sharing a CD with a few people doesn't. Also, sharing a CD relocates the physical media, while file-sharing doesn't.
The recording industry has filed hundreds of lawsuits against individual music lovers accusing them of illegally downloading and sharing songs over the Internet. How can the industry pinpoint exactly which students are sharing files?
As a starting point, remember that data on who hosts given files is available by logging on to the p-2-p service. The p-2-p software allows other peers access to your hard drive. The entertainment and software industries have written "spyware" that uses these same loopholes to monitor what you have on your hard drive. Every year, the spyware gets more sophisticated, and so does the p-2-p technology, like a chess game.
Doesn't this pose some security and privacy risks?
Absolutely. Any time you open access to your computer to the whole Internet, it's a security and privacy risk. Other technologies that open your computer to the world, such as Instant Messenger, already have been exploited by hackers.
What is UB's policy regarding file-sharing?
A full discussion can be found at: http://wings.buffalo.edu/computing/policies/dmca/
What question do you wish I had asked, and how would you have answered it?
What changes do you see that might change file-sharing and copyright protections? The easy answer is to wait for case law and Supreme Court decisions to modify the interpretation of the DMCA and similar legislation. I do see a paradigm change in the way the musicians might view file-sharing. Given the enormous dollars to be made with the live concert circuit, musicians might elect to make their music files available for free download, as a publicity ploy to create a buzz about an upcoming concert. Think of AM radio play in the 50s, which sold 45 records, or MTV in the 80s, which sold CDs, and the analogy makes sense.