[FC-discuss] [FC-Discuss] Universities and free content

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Mon, 1 Oct 2007, Fred Benenson wrote:

> 1) Student copyright policy
>  What rights do students have to their work? Moreover, are they allowed to
> freely license it?
>
> 2) p2p filesharing policy
>   How willing is the university to play ball with RIAA's extortionist
> tactics? Do they readily give up student information, or ban the student
> from the network? 3 strikes? 1 strike? Do they offer services to students
> who are sued? What is the party line about the copious amounts of file
> sharing that is obviously going on on their campuses?
>
> 3) Privacy / Free Speech stuff
>  Is running Tor legal? Can you protest easily?
>
> 4) Open Access
>  How receptive are the librarians / academics to open access publishing?
> This is a hard thing to quantify, but perhaps you guys have some better
> ideas.

5) Network freedom

How possible is it for students to run their own servers on their 
computers attached to the institutional net?  Is the network designed to 
block that?  Is there policy against it?

Do the networks block some IP addresses or some ports from inbound or 
outbound access?  (e.g., Johns Hopkins blocks any access to the IP address 
of some major bittorrent trackers.)

I believe it is a Free Culture issue because so many of the major 
innovations (especially those that have come at odds with the copyright 
industry) have emerged from college dorms.  Furthermore, this is a crucial 
part of a participatory Internet rather than a network that lets you 
download but not offer content for download by others.  By all means, you 
don't have to do all of this big, difficult question (although hopefully 
with help, we can map this), so consider this my suggestion.

By no means do I think that, if I contribute no work to what is already 
set to be a useful, exciting project, I get to pick what questions you 
guys ask. (-:

-- Asheesh.

--
"Well, social relevance is a schtick, like mysteries, social relevance,
science fiction..."
  		-- Art Spiegelman