BitTorrent on Ohio U v RIAA row
p2pnet.net news view:- BitTorrent president Ashwin Navin has spotted a marketing opportunity in the Ohio University versus the RIAA p2p file sharing storm.
For weeks Ohio languished at the top of the RIAA’s university sue ‘em all hit list. It ultimately decided discretion was the better part of valour, “banning file sharing on campus networks, at the same time promising to monitor school networks”.
But, says Navin in an CNET OpEd, “By instituting this ban, Ohio University has demonstrated a serious lack of understanding of P2P technology’s value and role on the Internet. Furthermore, the school has closed its doors to innovation and shirked its responsibilities as an educational institution.”
BitTorrent the company joined the corporate ranks some time back, but BitTorrent the protocol is still out there, serving the needs of independent online communities of all stripes and colours.
But, “Given my position at BitTorrent, I confess I have a vested interest in building a successful and robust future for P2P architectures,” says Navin, going on:
If P2P is like a hybrid car, BitTorrent is the Toyota Prius.
P2P can help. (One of the original designers of the Internet, Vint Cerf, also agrees with us.) The best way to alleviate the stress on the central backbone of the Internet is to decentralize the onus of distribution to a local level using P2P, and specifically with a BitTorrent-like architecture. BitTorrent does one thing and one thing only: it reduces, not replaces, the dependency on a central Web server by accumulating all of the available bandwidth and computing capacity that lives on the user’s PC. As a result, a Web site and the Internet can run more efficiently. If P2P is like a hybrid car, BitTorrent is the Toyota Prius. Although it doesn’t eliminate the need for gasoline (that is, central Web servers), BitTorrent can often provide more than 1,000 times the “fuel efficiency” relative to the old-fashioned way of driving the Internet, which has been dependent on a lot of central resources.
However, “We come in peace,” he declares quickly, lest anyone get the wrong idea. “BitTorrent, the company, does not support piracy. In fact, piracy is our biggest competitor and the most significant challenge to making our company profitable.
That said, he continues, “the potential for tech-aided piracy begs a few fundamental questions.
Why aren’t similarly broad actions being taken to block other technologies that can be used to transfer and share copyrighted material (such as newsgroups, FTP, IM and e-mail–along with photocopiers, printers and CD burners)? Can the techniques implemented to manage the abuses of other technologies be applied to P2P? Why isn’t Ohio University working with P2P industry leaders to find productive solutions, instead of copping out with unilateral bans?
And why are university policy makers not raising awareness for the legal services to rent or purchase content legally? More effectively, why doesn’t the campus reply to industry pressure with a plea for steep college discounts and more aggressive marketing support for legal download services like iTunes and the BitTorrent Entertainment Network?
This ban will have a devastating affect on Ohio University’s ambitions in computer science, engineering and IT.”
But they are “raising awareness,” Ashwin. Ask Napster, shoe-horned in when the Big 4 first identified the universities as sales-cum-enforcement divisions, or Ruckus, or any of the other self-serving “legal services” backed and supplied by the entertainment cartels.
Meanwhile, the same questions, and others, have been asked repeatedly since EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) first sicced their RIAA and similar so-called trade outfits onto not only American universities, but on their own customers around the world.
Nor is Ohio unique. Far from it. Exactly the same things can be said of all the other US teaching institutions which have elected to go the RIAA way instead of looking after the interests of their staffs and students.
Ohio, the most heavily attacked, may have been the first to ban p2p file sharing, but it won’t be the last.
And speaking of innovation, not all universities are passive victims. The University of Florida created ICARUS (Integrated Control Application for Restricting User Services), using it shut down network access over suspected p2p activity and is now apparently running a network spy program designed for use against students on behalf of the corporate movie and music industries.
But there are, of course, solutions for Ohio students, says Navin. And guess what they can include?
Yup.
BitTorrent.
“If you’re an Ohio University student, you should follow the instructions in the dean’s note,” says Navin. “Contact the IT service desk to get an exemption and exercise it. Download a photo from space for a term paper from NASA’s Visible Earth series. Or download some of the thousands of legal movies, TV shows and music at the BitTorrent Entertainment Network. Or reduce the cost of servers for your school by ‘torrenting’ the documents on your campus Web server – it’s as simple as 1-2-3.”
Or they could follow the advice of Pat McGee, managing attorney for the university’s Center for Student Legal Services. And BT doesn’t enter into it. Rather, he believes students should pool their resources and hire an attorney instead of settling. “If everybody fought it tooth and nail it’d probably tie up the federal court system for ten years.”
Also See:
better part of valour – Stand up to the RIAA bullies, May 4, 2007
CNET – The P2P mistake at Ohio University, May 7, 2007
ICARUS – New Uni of Florida anti-p2p app, April 20, 2007
tooth and nail – Ohio University and the RIAA, March 3, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
May 7th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
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May 7th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
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