Computing & Information Services
Computing Policy Committee Minutes
April 16, 2003
4 - 5 pm
ETC 309
The CPC can be contacted at computing-policy@reed.edu
Present: Ethan Benatan, Ann Delehanty, Paul Gronke, Vickie Hanawalt, Ethan Jackson, Keith Karoly, Leslie Limper, Ed McFarlane, Chris Rempel, Marty Ringle, Tristan Trotter
Absent: Karen Perkins-Butzien, Jon Rivenberg, Peter Steinberger
TAC Meeting Briefing: Marty gave the committee a brief summary of the 9 th annual meeting of the Technology Advisory Council in February. At the meeting, Reed faculty member Jeffrey Parker gave a demonstration of his econ. simulation project, for which he has applied for grant funding to continue work through the summer. In addition to the expected general discussion of technology at Reed and beyond, Marty and Johanna Thoeresz shared their plan for instituting a TAC Executive Committee, which would bring more student and faculty input into the group.
DMCA and Copyright infringements: Gary Schlickeiser, Director of Networking and Telecommunications, joined the meeting to discuss the DMCA (Digital Media Copyright Act) and Reed's involvement with it. Reed is registered with the DMCA as an internet service provider. This protects us in case of infringements by our students/staff/faculty on digital copyright laws. In cases where Reed is notified of a copyright infringement, we inform the individual, apprise her/him of the relevant laws and how she/he has violated them, suspend her/his access for a period of time, and then reestablish her/him on the network. In the past, these occurrences have been infrequent, and we've never had a repeat offender. However, in recent months, there have been more and more cases, causing CIS to have some concern over our methods of dealing with these violations. Are we being firm/effective enough in deterring people from illegal file-sharing? There was a great deal of discussion on this issue. It was generally agreed that we should continue with our current practices around Reed community internet usage, i.e., proactively educating community members on legal and illegal practices and using bandwidth shaping, which reveals excessive use of Reed's bandwidth without exposing the details of the information. Committee members felt that we should do even more to educate the Reed community on what is and isn't legal, according to the DMCA, and the ramifications of violating these laws. (Gary has written 2 articles for the "Quest" on this topic, and may continue to use this medium for information dissemination). It was also suggested that, in the event that there are cases of student repeat offenders, these be turned over to the J-board. The Committee also observed that it is against Reed policy to routinely monitor the content of network traffic. Such monitoring could, in fact, weaken our protection on the DMCA and expose the college to legal action in the event that a student engages in illegal practices via Reed's network.
Spamming and "bulk" emailing at Reed : Paul Gronke expressed his frustration with Reed community members who send emails to groups of people, but don't use the bcc or recipient list-repressed function. The result is that people reply to the entire group, resulting in lots of unwanted emails for the other recipients of the original message. The committee agreed that in these cases, individuals affected should inform the senders of these emails of those options, to avoid this in the future.
Last modified: October 15, 2003