2008 Woodie Awards
Music Downloading: Pilot Program Comes to Goucher
Sarah Culp
Issue date: 2/9/05 Section: News
As residential students returned to Goucher this semester, they met with sharp new restrictions in their campus Internet usage, the result of months of research and discussion among students, administration, SGA and the campus Information Technology department. The peer-to-peer file-sharing utilities that had formerly swallowed about 83 percent of campus bandwidth were now blocked completely, a decision that had stemmed from their domination of available bandwidth as well as "the high levels of spyware, computer viruses, [and] use of these programs to transmit and receive copyrighted material," according to the December 21 campus-wide e-mail from Chief Technology Officer Bill Leimbach that had announced the change.
In the same e-mail, Leimbach said that in the spring 2005 semester, students would have access to a new online music service (later named as Ctrax, part of the company Cdigix) with a library of over 1,200,000 songs, thanks to funding provided by SGA and the college. In the pilot program, which will be reviewed during the semester before the decision is made to continue or modify Goucher's participation, students are able to listen to music for free but must pay 89 cents per track or $9.99 per album to download and own music.
In addition to the music service Ctrax, Cdigix also includes a video content service called Cflix. On February 7, as this article was going to press, Cflix had just become available to students at a charge of $5.99 for unlimited viewing of their student-orientated programming, or $1.99 to $3.99 per film. File-sharing statistics from October 2004 suggest that the majority or a large percentage of Goucher's bandwidth was being used to download video content, not music.
Investigations into bringing an online content service to Goucher began in October 2004 with an open call made by Leimbach through e-mail for students who would be interested in working on an evaluatory committee. Nineteen students participated, comparing online music vendors on a variety of criteria including the cost to users, the cost to the college, the size and span of the service's catalog, and the technology used by each service. The committee selected Cdigix as the best vendor for Goucher's needs, based on its low pricing and the fact that it includes an on-campus server so that requests for music do not utilize Internet bandwidth.
At the December 1 meeting of the SGA legislature, which had previously heard a presentation by Leimbach on campus Internet usage, a resolution was submitted by committee member Matthew Vickers, '08, that called for Goucher to block all incoming and outgoing peer-to-peer program Internet traffic, including the programs BitTorrent, KaZaA, Morpheus, Limewire and Bearshare. During discussion of the resolution at the December 8 meeting, questions were raised about Goucher's responsibility to fund an alternative file service but a motion to strike that segment from the resolution was defeated by a 2-29 vote. The legislature approved the resolution in a 22-7 vote, with three abstentions.
Before discussion on the resolution began, the executive board had already planned a meeting immediately following the adjournment of legislature to discuss bringing a legal file service to Goucher. According to the official minutes of the legislature meeting, SGA president Josh Stober, '05, said that if the legislature had resoundingly rejected the resolution, it may have affected those proceedings, but a mixed response would probably be enough for executive board to uphold their plans. At their meeting, the executive board agreed to fund 50 percent of the cost of the Cdigix pilot program, contingent on the college's agreement to block all illegal file-sharing programs. At a college council meeting, Goucher president Sanford J. Ungar agreed to meet that demand and that the school would pay the remainder of the cost.
The actual cost of the program is dependent on how many students use the service, with a maximum cost that charges will not exceed. Neither Leimbach nor Stober were able to disclose that maximum cost to The Quindecim, citing the terms of the agreement with Cdigix. However, at the December 8 SGA meeting prior to the Cdigix agreement, Stober estimated that the cost of the program would be in the vicinity of ten thousand dollars total for the semester.
Although the December 21 announcement implied that SGA was effectively responsible for the changes in Goucher's Internet policy, Stober emphasized in an e-mail for this article that "by no means does the SGA have the power to enact any type of policy at the college level." Stober said that if Goucher were to adopt the Ctrax service permanently beyond the spring 2005 pilot program, it would be paid for by the college and not with supplemental funding from SGA.
"It pleases me greatly that the college has responded so well to the resolutions passed by the legislature this year. It not only proves that the college listens to the representatives of the student body, but also that they are willing to hear all sides of an issue," Stober said in the e-mail.
During the spring semester, the college will decide whether to continue funding the Ctrax program for students' use. There has been no indication whether peer-to-peer file-sharing programs will remain blocked regardless of the Ctrax status, although Leimbach has said that it would be technologically possible to remove the blocking and return to past practice. Leimbach said that alternative strategies that would control bandwidth consumption without blocking the programs, such as capping the amount of data each student could download in a specified time period, were rejected because of the cost of implementation and management.
In the same e-mail, Leimbach said that in the spring 2005 semester, students would have access to a new online music service (later named as Ctrax, part of the company Cdigix) with a library of over 1,200,000 songs, thanks to funding provided by SGA and the college. In the pilot program, which will be reviewed during the semester before the decision is made to continue or modify Goucher's participation, students are able to listen to music for free but must pay 89 cents per track or $9.99 per album to download and own music.
In addition to the music service Ctrax, Cdigix also includes a video content service called Cflix. On February 7, as this article was going to press, Cflix had just become available to students at a charge of $5.99 for unlimited viewing of their student-orientated programming, or $1.99 to $3.99 per film. File-sharing statistics from October 2004 suggest that the majority or a large percentage of Goucher's bandwidth was being used to download video content, not music.
Investigations into bringing an online content service to Goucher began in October 2004 with an open call made by Leimbach through e-mail for students who would be interested in working on an evaluatory committee. Nineteen students participated, comparing online music vendors on a variety of criteria including the cost to users, the cost to the college, the size and span of the service's catalog, and the technology used by each service. The committee selected Cdigix as the best vendor for Goucher's needs, based on its low pricing and the fact that it includes an on-campus server so that requests for music do not utilize Internet bandwidth.
At the December 1 meeting of the SGA legislature, which had previously heard a presentation by Leimbach on campus Internet usage, a resolution was submitted by committee member Matthew Vickers, '08, that called for Goucher to block all incoming and outgoing peer-to-peer program Internet traffic, including the programs BitTorrent, KaZaA, Morpheus, Limewire and Bearshare. During discussion of the resolution at the December 8 meeting, questions were raised about Goucher's responsibility to fund an alternative file service but a motion to strike that segment from the resolution was defeated by a 2-29 vote. The legislature approved the resolution in a 22-7 vote, with three abstentions.
Before discussion on the resolution began, the executive board had already planned a meeting immediately following the adjournment of legislature to discuss bringing a legal file service to Goucher. According to the official minutes of the legislature meeting, SGA president Josh Stober, '05, said that if the legislature had resoundingly rejected the resolution, it may have affected those proceedings, but a mixed response would probably be enough for executive board to uphold their plans. At their meeting, the executive board agreed to fund 50 percent of the cost of the Cdigix pilot program, contingent on the college's agreement to block all illegal file-sharing programs. At a college council meeting, Goucher president Sanford J. Ungar agreed to meet that demand and that the school would pay the remainder of the cost.
The actual cost of the program is dependent on how many students use the service, with a maximum cost that charges will not exceed. Neither Leimbach nor Stober were able to disclose that maximum cost to The Quindecim, citing the terms of the agreement with Cdigix. However, at the December 8 SGA meeting prior to the Cdigix agreement, Stober estimated that the cost of the program would be in the vicinity of ten thousand dollars total for the semester.
Although the December 21 announcement implied that SGA was effectively responsible for the changes in Goucher's Internet policy, Stober emphasized in an e-mail for this article that "by no means does the SGA have the power to enact any type of policy at the college level." Stober said that if Goucher were to adopt the Ctrax service permanently beyond the spring 2005 pilot program, it would be paid for by the college and not with supplemental funding from SGA.
"It pleases me greatly that the college has responded so well to the resolutions passed by the legislature this year. It not only proves that the college listens to the representatives of the student body, but also that they are willing to hear all sides of an issue," Stober said in the e-mail.
During the spring semester, the college will decide whether to continue funding the Ctrax program for students' use. There has been no indication whether peer-to-peer file-sharing programs will remain blocked regardless of the Ctrax status, although Leimbach has said that it would be technologically possible to remove the blocking and return to past practice. Leimbach said that alternative strategies that would control bandwidth consumption without blocking the programs, such as capping the amount of data each student could download in a specified time period, were rejected because of the cost of implementation and management.