True or false: Is file swapping legal?

Students at one Missouri university don't just have to take surprise quizzes on economics, chemistry, or Spanish these days. They also get pop quizzes on digital copyright law. The online test aims to prevent piracy and violation of copyright laws, and if students want access to peer-to-peer file sharing, they have to ace it.

According to an Associated Press report, the Missouri University of Science and Technology now requires students to correctly answer six questions about digital copyright law before they can use peer-to-peer tools. If they pass the test, they get six hours of access to the software.

Students are limited to eight monthly stints (of six hours consecutive each) with peer-to-peer software during the academic year, and they must take the test each time they want to use it. The school, located in Rolla, Mo., near the Ozarks, introduced the test as an alternative to taking away access to peer-to-peer file sharing from students and faculty.

A fear of lawsuits from the recording industry has prompted many schools to suspend access altogether. In November, Congress began pushing schools receiving federal funding to develop alternatives--such as subscription-based services or technology-based deterrents--to prevent students from engaging in copyright violations and piracy.

In May, a new law passed in Tennessee requiring any higher-education institution in the state to develop and enforce a policy that prohibits its students from committing copyright infringement.

Tim Doty, Missouri S&T campus systems security analyst, told the AP that the school still wanted to allow peer-to-peer access, "but in a controlled fashion. We're providing them the information to make an informed decision."

Doty said the pre-access quiz appears to be the first such test on a U.S. campus, and he says it cut complaints from the recording industry from 200 during the 2006-2007 school year to a mere eight in the school year just wrapping up.

Unlike regular school quizzes, once students pass this one, it's not the end of the story. If Missouri S&T students don't follow the copyright rules, they can lose their Internet privileges or be reprimanded with fines, community service, research projects, or even suspension.

[JCPayne]

File Swapping is NOT illegal.... Swapping copyrighted song IS if you live in a country that adhears to music copyright laws.

[Archus]

That's stupid. If you want to get around the restriction just setup an off campus ftp server and have it run utorrent with WEBuI. you can start a torrent from anywhere and then ftp it to your computer

[paul.saulnier]

As if students don't already have enough to worry about, they have to also make sure they are doing their part to keep the recording industry happy and rich.

Why don't schools stick to the education goals and tell the recording industry to go away, instead of helping them with their dirty work.

[groink_hi]

Right back at ya... Why don't students spend more time studying and using the sfchool's IT for research? It works both ways. If a very large percentage of the total bandwidth utilization in/out of the campus is because of copyright infringing activities, don't you think the school should do something about it? I can imaging that most schools in America can actually purchase a slower pipe - saving money overall - if they could somehow control the utilization to just legitimate use. But no, schools must purchase huge pipes just so that the legitimate activities can function properly.

[Tergon]

@Archus: Yes but the external server isn't on University Property/Network and therefore RIAA/MPAA can't sue the school.

@JCPayne: I agree (not that's it's up for debate, but it's exactly what I was going to say, lol)

I think I got Choked the other day doing my first (and probably only) Torrent to get an officially distributed Mixtape (i.e. what I was doing was legal). It took 16 hours+ to do it and I think that some of the songs are not complete. It saddens me that this is just yet another example of what my third grade morning teacher used to do (Punish the Whole Class for the Actions of one/few)

[Pete Bardo]

JC --that's probably one of the questions they have to answer correctly.

Archus -- The point is blocking use of the university network to illegally download copyrighted works. I'm sure they don't care what the students do at home, on their own computers.

RIAA -- your heavy-handed targeting of college students seems to have worked at UM S&T.

[Ashwin Mudigonda]

As

- one cannot fill bits in one's hard drive beyond its capacity
- sending a file is equivalent to turning on or off a series of bits on one's hard disk to match the source

technically, one can argue that sending a file is a concept, whereas the file already exists on the hard disk and the particular sequence of ones and zeros are only stimulated.

thus it is plainly legal to do whatever one choose with one's bits.

[Dalkorian]

Curious the article didn't supply the RIAA approved "answer" to the question posed in the title. Is file swapping legal? Consider the question carefully, it's pretty broad. Here's an example, say I write an essay about how much I hated the movie "Howard the Duck" and distribute MY essay on BitTorrent. Is that legal (that's what the question is asking after all)? Personally I can't believe even one university caved into the idiotic demands of the nazi RIAA, considering those demands were sold and based on FABRICATED EVIDENCE (the proven false claim that most music pirating happens on university campuses). The universities should just tell the RIAA and MPAA as well to take a short drop with a sudden stop.

[ballssalty]

True or false? The answer is obviously true. File swapping is legal. The act of sending a file to another person is absolutely legal. Send an attachment via email? Send a file via FTP? All of this is swapping files which have been legal forever. So if I answered that specific question as true would they say I got the answer wrong? I hope this school gets sued over this clearly ridiculous policy.

[baswwe]

Why do I have to log in every time now to post a comment? The old message boards were better.

Well I hope these student know how to use FTP and google to find things if they can't file share.

All file sharing is - is FTP with a search. LOL. The students might not grasp FTP.

[groink_hi]

Sounds like a cookie problem. Try deleting the cookies for *.cnet.com and *.news.com in your web browser, and then log on one last time. You shouldn't have to log on each time you want to comment.