H -°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°The federal government is clamping down on illegal file sharing on college campuses with a new act that threatens loss of federal funding for schools that fail to adequately monitor illicit downloaders.
Under The Higher Education Opportunity Act, which went into effect July 1, all institutions of higher education that receive funding from the federal government must do all they can to stop illegal file sharing or risk losing federal funding.
For UW, this means continuing efforts already in effect for years, according to Division of Information Technology spokesperson Brian Rust.
There will likely be few changes made to UW wireless and internet procedures as a result of the act and UW is not at risk for losing federal funding because of lax internet policies, Rust said.
Rust added the only change would be formalizing policies UW has been following for years.
Posters, e-mails and seminars at Student Orientation And Registration are all measures UW put in place to inform students and their parents about the dangers of illegal file sharing, or as Kip Cox in the Offices of the Dean of Students said, “illegal file stealing.”
The recording and motion picture industries lobbied heavily to ensure the act became a reality, Rust said.
Cox said the problem is prevalent on every campus and is an important issue because it is stealing, not sharing.
UW frequently receives Cease and Desist orders from both the recording and motion picture industries which contain the date and time of the alleged infraction and the IP address where it occurred.
After receiving an order, DoIT examines their logs, which are kept for 30 days.
Rust said if the illegal activity happened within that time period, DoIT will notify the student and ask they remove the file and turn off any and all file sharing software.
This is considered strike one.
A second offense means students have to take a copyright awareness quiz and have DoIT search their computers, Cox said.
When students do get a second offense, Cox said it is usually because they did not turn off their file sharing software correctly or they were not even aware they had it in the first place.
Cox said he urged students to get their computers checked by DoIT to make sure this does not happen to them.
“Very few students get a second offense,” Cox said. “The ones that are aware of it usually stop after the first time.”
UW has never had a student hit their third strike, but Cox said disciplinary action and loss of UW Internet privileges would most likely be the result.
The vast majority of infractions occur in UW Residence Halls or with students using UW’s wireless Internet, Rust said.
Wireless, however, does not protect a student’s identity, as 26 students who were subpoenaed in 2007 can attest.
Rust said the Recording Industry Association of America subpoenaed the students’ information and DoIT had no choice but to comply.
The case settled out of court, with each of the individuals paying around $3,000, Cox said.
IP hash: bd6b2d38
To all who voted for The Central Scrutinizer - Enjoy!
Hope…. Change……
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@anonymous-7/21 12:17pm How is this a Democrat versus Republican issue to you? Do you think Republicans voted against Digital Millenium Copyright Act? Do you think Republicans think that you should be allowed to steal movies and music while using Internet services at publicly funded Universities?
If so you must have the same crippling brain disease that afflicts Glenn Beck. Watch out for the black helicopters and make sure you get that tin foil hat securely tied to your noggin.
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I think the point here is that a Republican administration would not have pushed to include such regulation and penalty into a university funding bill
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One day you libtards are going to realize your foolishness for mocking people who value their liberties and want to make a stand for their country, all while you sign away your life of privacy in the name of protection. Get over the left-right thought process and look at good-evil, right-wrong. You unknowingly support evil and those who seek to do wrong but you’re too damn stupid to see the truth. Take off your compassion glasses and give up the reality TV, there’s nothing real about. Hope your balls finally drop in the next month or two as you’re gonna need them when this country implodes on itself from the Commies in the WH. Now go back to your Maddow show where everything’s safe in lala land.
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@bd6b2d38
…yeah becauase the Repubs aren’t infamous for supporting efforts of big business (RIAA) rather than consumers…
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yeah cause the current NON republican administration isnt a huge fan of ACTA which is nothing more than a giant wishlist by those same companies.
stop being a tool and start using your brain
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Any software that’s overpriced or any music or movies made by or starring haters, bitches and douchebags deserves to be pirated!
IP hash: 6b164090
What’s that? You wanna check my computer? Sure, here you go.
What? Harddrive is encrypted? Nonsense, that is just a feature.
What’s that? You want the key? Oops, sorry. Lost it.
Can I have my computer back now? Thanks.
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IP and MAC spoofing, is there anything it can’t do?
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More evidence that the government is nothing more than a corporate tool. But come on, you can learn the same things by NOT going to college, so the real problem here is that citizens should have some way to get self-taught accreditation.
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Score another one for the corporate lobbyists.
Maybe active network monitoring will help students become embolden to discover new methods of blocking said monitors. It really isn’t that difficult to get around it. After all, the computer engineers are the ones who discover the protocols in the first place… only then can a privately held company, like X University, scheme new ways to monitor and police data on their networks.
Keep corporate money out of our classrooms and help give our students the tools they need to be the leaders of tomorrow, today.
Tell your congressman today that you are not going to stand for it!
~ peace
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IT department should just teach students how not to get caught. Students will still share files, but as long as they don’t get caught the University won’t lose funding.
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‘A second offense means students have to take a copyright awareness quiz and have DoIT search their computers, Cox said.’
Yeah… Good luck with that.
“Hey, why isn’t anything showing up? What, hidden encrypted volume? No fair!”
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There is no way that ALL content from movies was created by the film maker. How many movies have artwork, buildings, automobiles, or any material object that was created by someone else in them? ALL of them. These material objects, created by others, are then filmed and profited from. The creators of these items receive NO money from the films revenue. By their own standards, this is STEALING! Film companys should be held to the same rediculous standards that they are expecting from the general public. They should all be sued, using their own rediculous copyright laws. If a Movie has ANY material object in it that was not CREATED BY THEM. THAT is stealing! Hold them accountable!!
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Universities, by their nature HAVE to be about the free flow of ideas? What does it mean when the corporation, I mean govt. now wants to monitor every file coming in to every student? Where is the free expression? Where is the freedom of ideas?
Not all files, essays and ideas floating around campus are meant to have the ‘seal of approval’ of the US Govt. Squash this, and we’re heading down a very dark road.
IP hash: 7f65d9cb
Good luck finding my portable hard drive. Also, good luck finding my IP which constantly changes.
One more thing, I am not dumb enough to assign my name to my computer.