Lewis Warns Against Illegal Downloading

Student scofflaws who illegally download music and movies got a stern warning from Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 in a message posted on the College website and sent over House lists last week. However, the College is not planning any immediate measures to stem illegal file transfers over Harvard’s network.

Lewis’ message warned that students caught downloading or distributing copyrighted music, movies or other materials could lose network privileges, or face college disciplinary action and criminal charges. Although the College has warned students for illegal use of the network, no students have yet lost privileges for this reason.

According to Lewis, no particular violations prompted his warning. However network administrators said they are increasingly concerned with the heavy traffic that illegal file sharing creates, and are considering new ways to limit network use.

Since downloading bootlegged movies and music can slow legitimate traffic on the network, Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) is considering new network restrictions, said HASCS Director Frank M. Steen.

The majority of the school’s network space is used disproportionately by a very small number of users, Steen said.

Moreover, Harvard’s computers often serve as unwitting hubs for file-sharing programs such as Kazaa. Such programs reach computers both inside and outside of Harvard, significantly increasing the network traffic.

“The network is designed to further Harvard’s academic mission,” Steen said. “It is not designed for downloading illegal movies or distributing them. The issue is that a lot of bandwidth is used which costs money and tuition dollars.”

While Steen did not give specific figures on Harvard, he said that at Cornell University, which has similar network traffic, 90 percent of users transferred less then two gigabytes a month on the network. By contrast, a single movie of good quality is about one to three gigabytes, he said.

“A movie is like a whole month’s worth of average use,” Steen said.

The Harvard network currently has some limits on the amount of data that can be transmitted in a given amount of time.

Steen said he is considering making a list of top network users and warning them against sharing files. Other universities have taken similar steps to cut down on network traffic.

“It’s something like the way telephone monitoring works,” Steen said. “You can look at how long people speak on the phone without knowing what they’re saying.”

This method is consistent with the long-standing university policy against monitoring specific student activities online.

However, if organizations such as the Motion Picture Association of America complain about certain computers in the Harvard network transferring copyrighted materials, HASCS identifies the accused student and issues a warning.

“When the movie industry asks us to shut down people doing illegal things, we have to comply,” Steen said. “Everyone who has been warned has stopped.”

“The notice may serve as a reminder to some students and as more of an alert to others,” he wrote.

In past years, Harvard received five to seven complaints a year from copyright holders regarding illegal downloading. However, the number of complaints reached its highest level of 25 a week in September and October, Steen said.

Even if sites charge membership fees for access to downloadable movies and music, they are not necessarily legal, Steen warned.

“It would be easy for students seeing something on the web that ‘looks legitimate’ to use it without realizing that they are engaged in criminal activity,” Lewis wrote.

—Staff writer Katharine A. Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.