Prairie View A&M University is in the process of beginning its technology base deterrent titled, “Copy Sense,” which allows the university to track peer to peer downloading through a computer system’s IP address.
The Copy Sense program is part of the 668.14 agreement, a regulation set aside by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) which mandates every university that participates in the program to assemble a mechanism to inform students about the inappropriate usage of copyrighted material, or peer-to-peer downloading.
Sally J. Stevenson, director of academic technology, said, “The guidelines for peer-to-peer downloading are very simple. If you’re not paying for it, you probably don’t deserve to have it because nothing in life is free. If you question whether or not it is legal, don’t do it.”
Stevenson believes that in order for students to follow these guidelines, they must first be aware of what peer-to-peer downloading is.
Peer-to-peer downloading is defined as an approach to content distribution in which digital files are transferred between users’ computers over the Internet. In a client-server structure, servers can store content and, if requested, can send the content to client machines, thus forming a one-to-many distribution model.
Peer-to-peer networks require installation of applications on computers with Internet access, which become nodes that communicate with each other, allowing interconnected networks to transfer files back and forth.
Over the course of time, peer-to-peer has developed into an efficient means to distribute a wide range of content including software, games, books, movies, and music.
In an effort to take both safety and legal precautions against illegal downloading, the university is taking additional action against those who violate, which includes but is not limited to being redirected and blocked from the Clean Access network.