The Death of a Hub · 2006-05-19
Two weeks ago, I received a request for a meeting with the Coordinator of Nethics, Amy Ginther, and the IT Security Director, Gerry Sneeringer, to discuss my Direct Connect hub. Apparently, an anonymous complainant sent the following e-mail to the university:
Subject: Illegal file sharing hub mainly used by UMD students
I am concerned about the existence of a “DirectConnect” hub that has been created to allow the sharing of files, illegally, amongst the student population at the University of Maryland, College Park campus. As far as I can tell, the “hub” is hosted at the IP address of 129.2.216.191 which according to the nslookup I ran is an on-campus IP address, or at least an address provided by the University through VPN. The address resolves to hub.student.umd.edu and is also accessed via the address umdhub.com
I also believe the “hub” to be run by a person named
snip. I got the name from a whois search on the domain name umdhub.com the results are below. As you can see from the results, it seems to be based out of an off campus apartment on knox road.
This complaint is completely invalid under the law. The only party that can file a copyright infringement complaint is the copyright holder, and the complaint must be made under the penalty of perjury. It is unknown whether the complainant is a student. The e-mail originates from a Hotmail account with no identifying information.
Monday, I met with Mr. Sneeringer and Ms. Ginther. While they agreed that what both the university and I was doing was probably legal, they had been given instructions to have the hub shut down.
Friday, I met with Jeff Huskamp, the university CIO/VP for IT, the two that I met with Monday, and a PR person. News of the complaint had spread far and wide, reaching some of the highest officials at the university. This meeting reiterated the statement that the hub would have to go, legal or not.
Tuesday will bring changes to the acceptable use guidelines that includes a statement about running a server to facilitate copyright infringement. Until now, I have broken no laws and no university rules, but when the guidelines change, that will no longer be the case. The unversity will maintain its current position however and only actively investigate file sharing allegations after a complaint is filed rather than actively seeking it out.
I can understand why the university has chosen this route. Combined with the threatening letter sent early this month, the complaint has caused a bit of a panic, even though the university is not doing anything illegal or even wrong. Even if they were willing to stick to their guns, there is little doubt that industry lobbyists would go to Annapolis, pull some strings, and make like life difficult for C. D. Mote. I can’t fault university officials for protecting their jobs before my hub. It is disappointing, but expected.
The only people to really blame are the original complainant and the various entertainment cartels. Between lobbyists and lawyers, it is extremely difficult to fight the entertainment industry. While I am in a legally defensible position, I do not have the time or money to go through the sort of judicial charade the the industry would pull me into. Rather than settle for a quick fight in court, they would undoubtedly make proceedings as long as possible with the intent to bankrupt me from legal fees before I could win.
I have little doubt that there will be another hub next year. In fact, there will probably be several. I encourage people to not split the userbase and to support a single hub at a time. There will probably be more complaints, and once one hub goes down, another can go up in its place. We may also develop alternative technologies to replace Direct Connect altogether, but make no promises if or when that will arrive.
It has been a fun two and a half years running the hub and I appreciate the support I have gotten from the vast majority of people around campus, students and otherwise.
