August 29, 2006

Dear Students,

As we begin the fall semester I would like to inform you about the University’s stance on a few key computer network activities.

First, “peer to peer” (P2P) file sharing is a popular service used by students to exchange files (mostly music and video) over the Internet.  Many students use these services at home and in other venues.  Although the University acknowledges that there are legitimate uses of P2P the majority of P2P usage is illegal since it constitutes copyright infringement.

In recent years copyright holders such as the Motion Picture Industry and the Recording Industry have been aggressively enforcing their copyright protection.  This has in many cases taken the form of contracting companies that use sophisticated techniques to monitor P2P networks and cite offenders for violations.  This past year we have seen an increase in students being cited for copyright violations, which can result in loss of network services, fines, and prosecution.

The University provides limited network bandwidth for legitimate P2P applications, including those provided through pay-for-service models.

I urge you to refer to the Student Computing Policy for more information about this policy and other related policies.  It’s available at: http://academic.scranton.edu/department/helpdesk/html_old/studentpolicy

Second, we understand that PC based on-line gaming is extremely popular with college students across the country.  The University’s stance on such gaming is neutral in that we make no attempt to either restrict or prioritize the network traffic associated with these programs.  Therefore, on-line gaming must compete with all other University network traffic for bandwidth and is subject to taking a “back seat” to traffic deemed more critical to meeting the academic and administrative requirements of the University.  Other types of on-line gaming using devices such as Xbox and Playstation are not supported on the University network at this time.

If you have any questions about these issues or others please contact the help desk at HELP (4357).  Best of luck for a very successful fall semester.

Sincerely,

Jerome P. DeSanto
Vice-President for Planning and CIO