Inside Higher Ed reports of a survey of colleges’ spending on P2P-related issues by the Campus Computing Project, including costs associated with compliance with the new provisions in the Higher Education Act and hours spent dealing with these issues.
“We’re talking lots of money here when you aggregate it out,” said Kenneth C. Green, founding director of the survey and a longtime critic of the entertainment industry’s tactics against campus Internet providers. The resources that large research universities may now be required to expend for P2P-related mandates, he added, could amount to an “enforcement subsidy” of $350,000 to $500,000 a year.
“The survey reveals that many private universities spend significant sums to license software intended to stem illegal/inappropriate P2P activity on campus networks (over $100,000 annually, on average, for campuses with software license agreements). While the software licensing fees paid by public universities are significantly less (over $20,000 annually), these payments still reflect a major allocation from campus IT budgets.”
These are very disturbing numbers. Keep in mind, however, that the article admits that the survey director is biased, so the research’s neutrality is questionable.