Doing my Grokster note last semester, I was kicked off the network for installing Grokster and/or BitLord. I had to un-install any p2p software and promise never to use any before I could get access again. I wrote letters which have gone unanswered. Never mind the pedagogical use I was intending, or the fact that the title I was attempting to download via Bittorrent was Prof. Lessig’s Free Culture in PDF format. Cory Doctorow apparently had the same issue at USC recently (as has Aram Sinnreich). See the annotated USC Copyright Compliant letter which contains his thoughts on it. The bottom line, all schools are so scared of getting suede that they will misstate the law (ignoring fair use, use for study or academic review, etc.) just to scare people away from P2P.
update: Clarification, I go to UALR Bowen School of Law. Some have indicated they thought I was also at USC.
Universities put Hollywood ahead of students
On the heels of yesterday’s post about USC’s lunatic copyright policy, many readers have written in with more examples of copyright lunacy on USC and other campuses, instances in which scholarship is being trumped by a desire to appease the entertain…
I agree, they shouldn’t get suede. Pleather is good, or naugahyde, but PETA will getcha if you get suede.
Are you referring to a copyright compliant letter, where you write a letter saying you were compliant with copyright, or are you talking about a complaint letter where you complain about it? Though they are spelled almost the same, the meanings are very different.
The USC calls their letter a compliance letter, i.e., people on their network need to comply with the college’s policy.
[...] and in a response to this post: USC has a pretty crummy track-record here: A USC student who was downloading copies of Larry Lessig’s FreeCulture, a book distributed via BitTorrent and Grokster at the behest of its author, was censured by USC for installing the app. He got kicked off the campus network and told that he would not be allowed back on until he promised to uninstall all general-purpose file-sharing software. He wrote letters of protest to the university about this, but never heard back. [...]
I am actually not USC student, but a student at UALR Bowen School of Law. The rest of the facts are correct.
[...] Copywrite.org Blog – Cory Doctorow’s USC Copyright Compliance letter [...]
[...] USC has a pretty crummy track-record here: A USC student who was downloading copies of Larry Lessig’s FreeCulture, a book distributed via BitTorrent and Grokster at the behest of its author, was censured by USC for installing the app. He got kicked off the campus network and told that he would not be allowed back on until he promised to uninstall all general-purpose file-sharing software. He wrote letters of protest to the university about this, but never heard back. [...]
[...] educational resources for their students. For example, last year a student at UALR Bowen School was kicked off campus because he tried to download a copy of Prof. Lessig’s book “Free Culture”. He was [...]