Beginning tomorrow at 12:01 a.m., the school will monitor its network for any file-sharing activity. If caught, users will have their Internet connections disabled until they agree to comply with the university's P2P ban. Students violating the new rule a second time will be judicially referred.
“The network is a shared resource, and we must ensure that it is available to all users,” said Brice Bible, chief information officer at Ohio University. “Peer-to-peer file-sharing consumes a disproportionate amount of resources, both in bandwidth and human technical support.”
Brandon "Fight the Patent" Shalton of Cydata Services told XBIZ he agrees with the university's action, and that he has yet to find a valid use or reason for P2P sharing. The decision was a good one, he said, and will not only reduce bandwidth costs, but also give the school control over how its academic resources are used.
Opponents of the P2P ban include various members of the online blog community, who posted their opinions immediately after reporting the news. Many expressed their disappointment that the school has refused students the right to use P2P for academic use, and that the school assumes its students only use it for illegal download-and-transfer.
"This is a pretty lousy move by OU," writes Adam Frucci on GizModo.com. "There are plenty of completely legit uses of P2P services such as BitTorrent, as many large (legal) files are easier to distribute that way. By simply banning it completely they're putting the wishes of the RIAA above the freedom of their students. Boo to you, Ohio U."
Shalton disagrees, however, saying he has yet to hear a valid point for using P2P networks for academic use.
"Large files can be chopped up; [instant messaging programs] have direct transfer, FTP to a server, etcetera," Shalton said. "The only academic use of P2P is to avoid censorship. A website could be shut down, like by pressure from the Chinese government, whereas [in] P2P, no one can control it. But that's such a small niche/percentage."
Shalton continued, saying P2P sucks up so much bandwidth that it can choke the real academic use of the Internet.
Ohio University wrote a letter to students explaining their decision, and told students P2P sharing has been restricted also because it makes its online network susceptible to viruses, spyware and other attacks. Preventing the distribution of copyrighted works also was listed.
