U of Tennessee blocked P2P sites before RIAA law

D.J. Donahue says his school's ban on P2P and BitTorrent unfairly punishes gamers and Linux users.

(Credit: Michele Wilson)

Truth be told, the state of Tennessee didn't need a lot of prodding from the recording industry to pass a law that requires universities and colleges to filter for unauthorized music downloads.

Remember, Tennessee is the home of Nashville, country music, and Elvis. Some of the music industry's largest music publishers are based there. Some schools were apparently eager to comply with copyright protection. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville began blocking access to BitTorrent and file-sharing sites for possibly the last month, said D.J. Donahue, a graduate research assistant at the school.

"I have been unable to access any torrent or P2P sites for several weeks, and there was an e-mail sent to students about it," Donahue told CNET News.

News broke on Tuesday that Tennessee's governor signed a bill into law that was designed to thwart music piracy at the state's campuses. The bill requires Tennessee public and private schools to exercise "appropriate means" to ensure that campus computer networks aren't being used to download copyright material via file-sharing programs, according to the Web site of the Recording Industry Association of America.

A spokesman for the school could not be reached for comment.

"This is just another turn of the big orange screw," Donahue said referring to the university. "This places a burden on those of us who use the torrent and P2P systems for legal downloads."

Donahue said his school's ban on P2P and BitTorrent unfairly punishes gamers and Linux users like him.

"I am a Linux user, and the best way to download many distributions is through a torrent system," Donahue said. "I'm trying out new Linux distributions, trying out the new stuff that comes along and one of the major sources of that are peer-to-peer and torrent sites. Since Linux is a free download, their sites can't support massive HTTP bandwidth."

Donahue said that game sites, which issue big update files, often use torrent sites. He said that gamers at the school will be unjustly blocked from receiving these updates.

[ckurowic]

Can't say I'm surprised. The college administrators philosophy is "if I don't understand it, ban it".

[therealbean]

Just download it from a non-P2P site. There are a lot more pressing issues in tech (and in the world!) than the tiny inconvenience to gamers who have to wait a little longer to download their updates. Jeez!

[ckurowic]

Just downloaded what? Linux? Yeah you can get all that stuff from non-p2p sites, not sure what that dude in the article is talking about. Lets be honest here, how many folks actually use things like limewire or bittorrent for legit things?

[The_Decider]

Lots of people use bit torrent for legit downloads.

[sandman08]

Kinda slow... Wash U St. Louis has had all p2p- emule, torrents, etc. blocked for the past 2 years, not only for copyright issues but also for bandwidth issues

[QMT]

How many schools -don't- block torrent traffic, or known gaming ports, or xbox live, etc, etc?
There aren't very many.

[ckurowic]

@QMT: So, you got your data from where? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but show me statistics that prove that.

[medezark]

There are a handful of free software applications which use p2p/bittorrent as their primary means of distribution. Project Gutenberg, the worlds largest collection of free, on-copyrighted or copyright lapsed e-books, for example, prefers that users use p2p or bittorrent as a distribution means for their downloadable CD/DVD projects.

Now, let's get this An institution of Higher Learning has purposely blocked access to the largest free on-line repository of electronic books, in order to appease Hanna Montana and Brittany Spears music publishers. Makes tons of sense to me.

[The_Decider]

I am glad I am at a school that doesn't block anything, including p2p and BT. Except, wireless access to most school servers. :(

[sythara]

I go by a simple rule of thumb. Are you paying for the internet service on campus? If yes then its a form of sensorship and is illegal. If you're not paying for it, who is? Is it paid by the university or tax dollars (directly or indirectly). If its paid by private funds then they can do whatever the hell they want. If its tax dollars, then its sensorship and is illegal.

P2P networks are heavily used by games (either for game updates like WoW or mod distribution from average joe). But is the campus internet is offered at no expense of the student then pretty much anything can be blocked.

[The_Decider]

Most Universities that I know of charge a hefty tech fee every term.

The only reason to block stuff like that is if the campus network is substandard.

[Dalkorian]

Two things:
1. Why is Cnet forcing me to re-log in for every single post I make today? This is getting annoying - any decent programmer can figure out how to keep a login for more than a few minutes.
2. What's more important, knowledge or RIAA profits? We know the answer from UofT now, don't we.

[jim barin]

Let us not forget in the headlong rush to create bans for this and bans for that and bans for the other, that the Nazis started to ban things they did not like, burning books lead eventually to 50 million dying before the Nazis were beaten.

Banning music file sharing is not in the same league - but the principle is the same.

The music industry has ripped off buyers for decades, a CD with music costs only cents to make, and has sold for anything up to $12-$15, with sales in the hundreds of millions since the start of the 80's. It is no small wonder that the music industry can afford to hire high priced lawyers and hound music sharers. truly, for every pirate ripping off music, there is a music industry pirate hoping to rip off the consumer.