Dal suspends Internet access for copyright violators

Movie and video game companies track student downloading activity on peer-to-peer systems

Dalhousie University has blocked Internet access for 69 students since September because of illegal downloading.

The university regularly receives complaints from companies such as Paramount and MGM studios as well as representatives from video game companies who have been tracking students' activities through file sharing systems such as Limewire and BitTorrent.

By monitoring peer-to-peer networks, companies can approach Dal with the user's computer network address, the time they downloaded or uploaded the material, the file size and a legal disclaimer.

Jeff Uebele, assistant manager of data communications at Dal, is in charge of examining these cases. If a student's activities are the same as the information in the complaint, Dal blocks a student's Internet access and asks the student to delete the downloaded material.

Uebele says Dalhousie needs to publish information warning its students about downloading copyrighted material.

"We need better help pages about things like file sharing and the fact that certain material is copyright," he says.

Right now, Dalhousie's Computing and Information Services doesn't have any information saying it's illegal to download copyrighted material nor does it have information about Dal's policy to cut Internet access for people who are found to have been downloading copyrighted material.

It does have its Guide to Responsible Computing, which all Dal students must sign before being granted Internet access on private computers.

The 1986 document states "[i]ndividuals should respect the property rights of others by refraining from the illegal copying of programs or data acquired by the University or other users, or putting software, data files, etc. on University computers without the legal right to do so."

Dal Internet law professor Michael Deturbide says downloaders clearly violate the Canadian Copyright Act, but it’s not clear how the university should deal with it.

"It's a bit of a grey area as far as the university's role here," says Deturbide.
"If the university knows this is going on and does nothing about it, there could be an argument that they're actually acting as a publisher, in which case publishers could be liable."

The university currently doesn't monitor individual students' access and will only block Internet access if an outside company brings up the problem, university administrators say.

Pat Power, director of network and systems and the person ultimately responsible for a user's Internet being blocked, says even though his department checks a complainant’s information, the staff is sometimes wrong.

"There have been cases where we've blocked an IP and someone is downloading a legitimate CBC documentary and we apologize (and) remove the block," says Power.

Power says the university only acts at the request of companies and doesn't actively monitor students' downloads.

"Whenever possible I avoid a police or ‘Big Brother’ role," says Power. "We do our best to allow students in their dorm to have the same experience in their home and as much as possible we stay out of the monitoring."

If the university finds out students have likely downloaded copyright material, it blocks their Internet access and a message appears in their browsers telling them to contact computing services to discuss their violations and have their Internet privileges reinstated. If the students live in residence, their wire connection is blocked and if they are wireless users, their computer cannot access Dal’s network. Once a student calls and is told what they have done is illegal, UCIS reconnects the connection if the student deletes the offending material.

The university doesn't call before disconnecting the Internet. Uebele says that would be too much work and wouldn't have the same effect.

"They would think, that was easy, I'll do that again," says Uebele. "We've got to inflict a little pain on them. By temporarily removing certain privileges, it gets their attention more.”

Uebele says nearly all students say they’re sorry and many say they didn’t even know it was illegal. In the past three years, he says they haven’t had any repeat offenders.

Many residence students at universities across Canada, including those at Dal, still have access to shared movie and music files through inter-residence sharing systems.

Since these systems are not available to the public, music and movie companies cannot monitor downloading and uploading so there is no record of illegal shared copyrighted information.

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