No more P2P at Colleges?

[wingnut2600]

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?"

[Caitlyn Marble]

thanks for the warning wingnut, now I know not to apply for the UW. :cross

I think students should get the rights to use p2p. I mean, they pay enough for tuition, give them some allowances at least

[dubstylee]

I think you should take some pics of that and post em here! I love it.

[Jorge]

ya-ya. Take some pictures and email them to [email protected]

[hawkburn]

They should be able to do whatever they please on their school networks, IF they pay a yearly or monthly fee like the lot of us do, if they get it free, then the college can do what they please.

[wingnut2600]

Since there are so many people vandalizing things for their individual agendas, they brought in pressure washers to wash off the sculptures and walls during my first class. The stuff on the ground also faded out after all the people trampled over it (there are like 35,000 people a day that walk over this area).

This morning though, it was like a circus with all the bright, multicolored chalk all over everything. All the students were reading all the different quotes about P2p (since they were covering all of the walkways). It made me feel sad that it was just some residence hall on campus and I had no part in it.

I am sure that there will be something in the daily school newspaper or in the local rags (with pictures). I will send you a link.