A Policy Perspective on the File Sharing Issues Charles E Phelps Provost University of Rochester

Background: Joint P2P Committee “Joint Committee” formed about 1.5 years ago, reps from Higher Ed (AAU, Educause, ACE, etc.) and Content (RIAA, MPAA) Why College Campuses? –Kazaa et al. seek out high bandwidth –College students naturally involved The Congressional overlay

Approaches Considered Education: “best practices” documents –Like alcohol on campus in historical context Technology –First approach by Content folks: Sniff and Block –Evolving approach: provide legal alternatives

No Magic Bullets! Most likely outcome: like drinking, we’ll curtail it, some excesses will continue Solution will involve multiple approaches –Enforcement against large violators –Education about what the law actually says –Provision of legit alternatives that offer higher value than stealing (even at positive price)

Technological Interventions Traffic shaping –Ignores subject matter, looks for type of traffic Bandwidth choking –At the pipe or at the port? Pricing network access (ala Cornell) Sniff and block More aggressive intrusion –Disablement from afar?

Can Sniff and Block Ever Win? DMCA worries (overly) about 1 st copy Real problem is subsequent copies Sniff and block in a world of –File compression (not a problem) –Encryption (a large problem) But… P2P won’t work in an encrypted world without software coordination

Some Complexities That darned 1 st Amendment stuff –Detect without violating privacy and free speech goals? Illegal file sharing NOT protected How much of the P2P is music? –Movies, music video, and porn loom large –Some legit traffic too

Enforcement Issues (My View) The “proper” enforcer is copyright holder College and universities should not be enforcers unless legally obligated Always consider “paper” analogy when considering proper action The one difference: control our networks!

What Happens if We Fail? Current status: DMCA provides universities with ISP status –Immune from liability if we follow simple rules Most obvious: Notice and Takedown process Less obvious: If we “know” too much, we can acquire liability

What Happens (cont.) Congress has threatened to “fix” the problem if we don’t Most obvious choice: remove ISP immunity –Would require us to become very intrusive

The End