============================================================================= Policies on the use of KaZaA, LimeWire, Gnutella and other high-bandwidth programs Michael A. Crowley, Department of Networking Revised: August 14, 2005 This is an important document; you should read it thoroughly. If you have seen a similar copy, check the revision date to determine if you should read it again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This document will accompany a confirmation that an ip-request has been processed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peer to Peer filesharing Programs such as Limewire allow the sharing of music, movies, games, and software. However, if you use such programs, you risk: * Legal problems from illegally obtaining and distributing copyrighted materials. You might find yourself with costs for lawyers and fines. This is far from a trivial problem. * Using more than your share of the network bandwidth * Allowing programs to be run on your computer for advertising or tracking purposes. For more information on this topic, read the remainder of this document as well as going to the following web site and its links: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/network/p2p/filesharing.shtml http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/network/doc/internet-use-policies.txt Our general recommendation is to avoid running any peer-to-peer filesharing program such as KaZaA, LimeWire, Gnutella, etc. College policy The Mount Holyoke College network and the computer systems attached to that network must not be used for any illegal activity. The college expects users of the campus network, which includes accessing the internet, to behave in accordance with copyright laws. If we receive complaints or subpoenas from organizations such as those mentioned below, we will take appropriate action. Bandwidth and the Network The Mount Holyoke College network is a resource shared by many people. The network bandwidth, especially the bandwidth to off-campus sites on the Internet, is a scarce resource and everyone needs to be considerate of other people when using this resource. Peer-to-peer filesharing uses much more bandwidth than you would expect from just downloading a few songs. While your computer is receiving songs or videos, it also begins to send those back to multiple locations. A relatively few machines doing this can clog the network and slow down everybody. You may believe you have installed such programs to _obtain_ music or videos, however, these programs also can cause your computer to illegally _distribute_ copyrighted materials. (Obtaining copyrighted material is also in violation of copyright law.) There are legal ramifications. These are described below. We are providing you with direct access to the Internet with the understanding that you will not abuse the college network resources by excessive use or illegal use of those resources. Your use of these resources should also conform to the conditions under which you are provided a computer account. For more information on this, please review the document: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/network/doc/conditions.txt Regardless of the legal issues, we cannot permit SUSTAINED, high-bandwidth use of network resources, especially off-campus resources which are much more limited than on-campus network resources. (See below.) Effects on bandwidth use When these programs cause your computer to become a server of copyrighted materials, your computer performance is lowered and you are interfering with the operation of the college network. Everyone's Internet access suffers because of this kind of use. Network bandwidth and what we need to do A relatively few number of individuals can saturate our entire Internet connection by serving large amounts of material. For the benefit of the entire community, we cannot permit a single computer system to monopolize resources designed to be shared by many. Computers which abuse the bandwidth resources may be blocked from off-campus network access for the good of the entire community. This is called "quarantining" your computer to on-campus access. Note -- To maintain a healthy network, the Department of Networking monitors traffic patterns and density. This does not involve reviewing any personal content of network traffic; it only involves amounts of traffic and protocols. This is analogous to monitoring of disk usage for the disk quota system. What is abuse of network resources? There is no rigid line that determines whether something is abuse or not abuse. There are several factors that go into a judgement about whether a particular electronic behavior is over the line or not. What constitutes abuse of bandwidth resources is proportional to the total available bandwidth over a period of time. There is much more bandwidth available on the local, on-campus network than there is for our off-campus Internet connection. The Internet connection, therefore, is a scarcer resource and is subsequently easier to abuse. The time factor is also important. Intermittently using a great deal of bandwidth from the Internet is normal when surfing the web. But SUSTAINED high bandwidth use causes problems for everyone. Sustained bandwidth usage in the order of 3-4 Gigabytes per day is excessive and such machines may be quarantined. This is, however, a guideline. If too many machines were operating in the 1-2 Gigabytes per day range, that smaller number would be considered excessive. Some example of problems: * Obtaining gigabytes of information -- Example: downloading your own version of Linux from the Internet. (See us if you need a copy.) * Sustained moderate network use -- Example: listening to streaming audio, such as remote radio stations, may not individually impact the network much, but multiply that kind of use by hundreds of people and the network can be choked. * Serving materials -- Example: serving songs or movies with Gnutella or Limewire. Example: running a personal web server that obtains an inordinate number of "hits". In general, think of the network as a community resource. If what you are doing contributes excessively to the load on the network and is significantly impacting the use of the network by others, then you are abusing the resources. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael A. Crowley Director of Networking mcrowley@mtholyoke.edu 216 Dwight Hall, Mount Holyoke College 413-538-2140 fax: 413-538-2331 South Hadley, MA 01075-6415 http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~mcrowley http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/network =============================================================================