wingnut2600
October 18th, 2002, 02:09 PM
I attend the UW in Seattle, and today , when I arrived on campus, I was greeted by hundreds of pro-Kazaa chalk drawings and writings put on buildings, sculptures, and covering the ground. The central portion of campus is a brick area about the size of 3 football fields. Across it was scrawled "Give us Kazaa!" calling an administrator a "bandwidth nazi" and telling people to take off bandwidth caps. The walkways of campus are covered with the multi-colored scrawl of perhaps 50 or more guerilla activists that left their message for all those attending the school to view. Talk about an open-air forum for discussion.
The question I pose to all of the participants of this here message board is should colleges allow students that use their computer network to use P2P programs?
This is a divisive question. On one hand, students pay for the internet service as well as the computers. On the other, bandwidth is expensive, and when thousands of people are downloading thousands of files, it is easy to target P2P users and programs as the easiest way to cut down on these costs.
With the declining economy and the recent pressure that the RIAA has placed on schools regarding filesharing over intraschool networks, educational institutions have a difficult decision to make over freedom of speech and privacy versus the rights of "artists"and copyright holders while staying financially viable.
The question I pose to each and every one of you is, "should colleges allow students that use their computer network to use P2P programs?"
The question I pose to all of the participants of this here message board is should colleges allow students that use their computer network to use P2P programs?
This is a divisive question. On one hand, students pay for the internet service as well as the computers. On the other, bandwidth is expensive, and when thousands of people are downloading thousands of files, it is easy to target P2P users and programs as the easiest way to cut down on these costs.
With the declining economy and the recent pressure that the RIAA has placed on schools regarding filesharing over intraschool networks, educational institutions have a difficult decision to make over freedom of speech and privacy versus the rights of "artists"and copyright holders while staying financially viable.
The question I pose to each and every one of you is, "should colleges allow students that use their computer network to use P2P programs?"