FDU's Acceptable Use Policy prohibits running software that accepts incoming connections from other computers. Programs such as Napster, Aimster, KaZaA, iMesh, Gnutella, Audiogalaxy, DirectConnect and Hotline all contain server components that allow others to connect to your computer and retrieve files off of your system. In addition to the legal implications of sharing copyrighted materials, file sharing software creates a security concern as improper use of these programs could result in the compromise of your private files and may leave your system open to attacks from other computers. With regard to the legal concerns, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits the distribution of copyrighted materials such as music shared by programs like those listed above. The number of DMCA complaints the university receives per week from organizations representing the music and video industry has been consistently increasing at a dramatic rate. For each complaint the University is legally bound to take action by identifying the offending port, shutting it down, working with the user to remove the offending material from his/her pc, and replying to the complainant.

In addition to the legal issues, such services consume enormous amounts of Internet bandwidth. The University is one of very few institutions in New Jersey to provide students, faculty and staff with a very high capacity and costly, connection to the Internet. In spite of this generous capability, this connection often reaches capacity as the result of peer-to-peer applications that consume enormous bandwidth per session. The more people that use the network, the more congested it becomes. It is important to realize that the University is not a commercial Internet Service Provider but an institution of higher learning. The University considers what it needs to provide to students, faculty, and staff in the way of technological services to meet academic needs, and then meets these needs in cost effective ways. The above applications have been adversely impacting the more traditional and necessary services from functioning (i.e. e-mail, WWW, and telnet), making it increasingly difficult for our students to complete their academic assignments in a timely manner.

According to a Gartner study in August 2000, thirty-four percent of U.S. colleges and universities were banning Napster and similar programs. Over the last year this number has risen significantly. The growing use of music and video sharing applications has given rise to legal implications, bandwidth issues, court battles, and law suits, distracting from educational missions. FDU has elected to mitigate these elements by limiting certain internet accesses so we can better focus on maintaining a robust infrastructure for the FDU community.