By
Emily Severson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Fifteen students have received disciplinary hearings this year due to inappropriate use of Napster, a music file sharing service provider.
Last year there were 40 incidents the entire year, said Steve Gilmore, assistant director of residential education.
"We probably referred them to get more information on the topic, so they understand copyright law better, whether it be on the university's usage policy or the copyright law," said Veda Hunn, assistant dean of students.
Depending on the offense, the first time a student is caught taking up a large share of bandwidth, Residence Life gives that student a warning.
If a student continues to misuse the Internet service, then the severity of the discipline will increase with each offense, with possible removal of the student from the residence hall, Gilmore said.
"The policies are stricter because we assume that students read the ResComp Acceptable Use Policy when they register their computer," Gilmore said.
"This is a really new area that we have to respond to. Our focus is on educating people on the appropriate use of the computer resources on campus," Hunn said. "If students violate the policies twice, then we would have to consider whether we should close certain university computer services to them," she added.
When the transfer of information slows dramatically on the UA server, the source can be tracked by Residence Life which contacts the individual responsible.
The Dean of Students office has not taken any steps to implement a specific plan to educate more students on the proper uses of Napster, but one could be needed in the future, Hunn said.
The acceptable use policy states that network use or application that inhibits or interferes with the use of the network by others is not permitted. For example, applications that use an unusually large portion of the bandwidth for extended periods of time.
"The residential network may only be used for legal purposes and to access only those systems, software and data for which the uses is authorized. Sharing access to copyrighted software or other copyrighted material (including MP3 music files from copyrighted music media and digitized video from copyrighted motion pictures ) on the network is prohibited and will result in referral to the Dean of Students Office for disciplinary action," the policy reads.
Many universities across the United States have banned Napster on their computers. However, there are other programs that allow students to download MP3 files, even if Napster were banned. Gnutella, IMESH and Scour all provide the same kinds of services.
The UA has decided not to ban Napster because it is not yet illegal, Gilmore said.
"We don't want to ban Napster because we do not want to begin to regulate things on the network based on their content," Gilmore said.
Last year, Residential Education and the Computer Center for Information Technology worked together to measure Napster traffic on the university network. They found out that at any given time 20 to 30 percent of all network traffic was being caused by students using Napster.
"Napster is all over the place in the dorms. When you walk down the halls, you hear a song and then you can go download it yourself," said Megan Joyce, an undeclared freshman resident of Coconino.
The problem with Napster on campus is not that the UA needs to ban it entirely, but that the university needs to regulate the amount of bandwidth it takes up at a certain time because it can drastically slow down the server for every other student trying to use it, Gilmore said.
This problem occurs when people leave Napster open all the time. The connection is so fast, other people will start to download from them. This starts slowing down the network for everybody else, he said.
"We provide the computer network for the residence halls because we want students to be consumers, not providers," Gilmore said. "The problems is that students are becoming bandwidth hogs without even knowing it."
It is difficult to police Napster because its is so difficult to find the computers of origin. If we spent time policing Napster, that is all we would be doing, Gilmore said.
In a poll of 50 universities and colleges nationwide, 34 percent of the institutions surveyed had banned Napster access to students and faculty who use campus servers, according to the Gartner Group.
Some of the universities that have banned Napster are Arizona State University, Kent State, Northwestern University, Notre Dame and Oregon State, said Joe Ancheta, Arizona representative for the Gartner Group.
The Gartner Group surveyed 50 schools that had servers open to the university community and were considered noteworthy, he said.
One of the reasons schools recently have decided to ban Napster is Metallica's copyright infringement suit against Napster that cited Yale University, Indiana University and University of Southern California as defendants.
Metallica eventually dropped the universities from the suit after the schools began to voluntarily restrict users access to Napster.
Universities that have taken a stand not to ban Napster include UA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Tech, Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Michigan.
"Napster itself is not the problem," Gilmore said. "Sharing access to MP3 files and making them available to other people is a violation of copy law."
