Amid a nationwide campaign asking states to require colleges to police their networks for online piracy, Dartmouth experienced one of its highest known rates of illegal file sharing last April. Computer Services received 93 notices from organizations in the entertainment industry that month, notifying them of students illegally downloading copyrighted material. In April 2006, the College received only 8 notices.
The notices usually stem from popular peer-to-peer file sharing programs, Ellen Young, manager of consulting services at Computer Services, said in an e-mail message to The Dartmouth.
"Most of the complaints we receive are in relation to BitTorrent or Gnutella type programs, although we have received complaints regarding many other programs as well," she said.
When a Dartmouth student is caught engaging in illegal file sharing, the Computer Services department first receives "take-down" notices from organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Pictures Association of America. College officials then contact the users to tell them to cease their illegal file-sharing activities.
In more serious cases, the entertainment industry not only sends notices to the Computing Services department, but contacts the Office of General Counsel and issues a subpoena for the user engaging in the file sharing. The College must then provide the recording company with the name and contact information of the user. The recording company can choose to file a lawsuit against the violator, independent of the College.
Despite these dangers, student have been able to continue illegal file sharing and circumvent College and entertainment industry regulations. All students interviewed by The Dartmouth spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of legal ramifications stemming from the actions they discussed.
"I got an e-mail from [the] computer help [desk] telling me that they knew I had LimeWire and that I had to get rid of it before I was fined," a member of the class of 2010 said. "Instead, I learned how to beat the system. They can only tell that you're illegally downloading if you're sharing [files]. So every time a song or movie was done downloading, I just moved it to a different folder so they can't trace it. "
Illegal file sharing activity has decreased since freshman year, one member of the Class of 2008 said, but not stopped altogether.
"I download myself but usually only music that will be hard to find on iTunes or from a friend," the '08 said. "I'm still afraid of being caught but now I use Torrents because it is almost impossible to get caught. File sharing won't be stopped anytime soon because people keep coming up with smart ways to beat the system. Plus, I think companies are getting the hint and are putting more free stuff online on sites like hulu.com."
Some students, though, are unable to beat the system.
"I got all the way up to meeting [Dean for the Class of 2008 Lisa Thum] and getting my computer checked for files and programs," another member of the Class of 2008 said. "If I get caught once more, I get an official reprimand."
Ellen Waite-Franzen, Dartmouth's vice president for information technology and chief information officer, expressed uncertainty about how the recent nationwide movement to crack down on illegal file sharing on college campuses will affect the College in years to come.
"It is difficult to predict what will happen," Waite-Franzen said in an e-mail message to The Dartmouth. "The entertainment industry is certainly becoming more aggressive in trying to insert legislation into both federal and state bills that would make colleges and universities put the technological infrastructure in place. But that won't stop the majority of file sharing, because more file sharing is taking place outside of higher education than inside higher education."
Even in the face of pending legislation threats, many students remain adamant about continuing their file-sharing activities.
"I think it's utterly ridiculous to have to pay for songs," said a member of the Class of 2010. "I never have and I never will."
If such legislation were to pass, the College would be able to choose from a variety of software options to curb online piracy, Waite-Franzen said in the e-mail, although this software would not completely fix the problem.
"From what I know from higher education sources, one product blocks file sharing, but individuals with appropriate skills could build a bypass for their files," she said.
At this time, there is no proposed state legislation that would impose requirements for the College to police its networks and implement this detection software, according to Robert Donin, the general counsel for the College.
"It is our understanding that there are a number of technical problems with most of these filtering software programs," Donin said.
If the College were to install such software, it would likely choose software that would limit only illegal file sharing, Waite-Franzen said.
"Most likely we would acquire the product that requires us to monitor the traffic rather than the products that automatically block traffic, so that legal traffic is allowed," she said.
