Following a federal court ruling last week against Verizon Communications that could threaten the future of Internet music swapping, University officials sent an e-mail to the entire student body Monday night instructing them on the dangers of using such peer-to-peer programs like KaZaA.
In their e-mail, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta and Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Tracy Futhey said not using such programs would help decrease bandwidth use on campus and protect students from potential copyright-infringement.
"In general, the safest action to ensure that you are not in violation of copyright laws, or that you are not disproportionately consuming network resources, is to delete the P2P application or disable the sharing facility of your P2P client," Moneta and Futhey wrote.
In its ruling, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia determined that Verizon must reveal the identity of one of its Internet subscribers who is suspected of illegally exchanging copyrighted music files over the Internet. Verizon officials said they will appeal the decision, arguing that such a ruling is an invasion of their customer's privacy.
If upheld, the decision--considered by many to be a major coup for plaintiff Recording Industry Association of America--will allow the nation's biggest record companies to more easily identify and sue millions of Americans who illegally exchange music files over the Internet.
RIAA affiliates currently visit KaZaA and other file-swapping services to spot illegal file-swapping. While the services do not display a user's name, they do reveal a user's IP address, a set of digits that identifies each user to the Internet. Armed with the IP address, the record companies can find out which Internet provider is being used by the file-swapper. Following the Verizon decision, companies will be able to legally request names of specific users.
As the provider of the Internet to over 10,000 students on campus, the University is a potential target, Moneta said.
"This [effort] was initiated by [Futhey's office] because of the frequency of communication they are getting from the music industry concerning illegal downloads," he added. "There is a campaign by the industry to encourage us to educate students about copyright laws, and that's what we are doing."
Moneta noted that the University will not monitor students' use of such programs and that the e-mail was simply meant as informational. He said the University welcomes continued national debate about the ethics of swapping programs, but will not order a complete discontinuation in the meantime.
Still, students can help save bandwidth by choosing services' option to prevent uploads by other users, Moneta said. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, when most students were home, for example, bandwidth remained constant presumably because students left their computers and P2P services running, allowing others to upload files.
"Bandwidth costs Duke real dollars that translates into tuition," Futhey said, adding that the University spends about $250,000 per year on bandwidth.
Students said they would probably continue using the services.
"Honestly, I don't care what the University tells me. It's an individual decision, and not for [the] University to decide," said freshman Rob Johnson.
Some said they might follow administrators' advice and restrict others from obtaining files from their computers.
"I'm not going to let people upload from me anymore," said freshman Matt Mandel. "That way no one can detect if I have it.... They can't take away my Seinfeld and porn."
The Boston Globe and Chronicle staff writer Aaron Levine contributed to this story.
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