Back in 2003, the University of Florida had a pretty big problem on its hands: too many kids were using p2p software to illegally share music. The toll this was taking on bandwidth was slowing connection speeds for everyone on the network, and causing complaints from copyright holders.

Now (I seem to say this often), I don't support illegal music downloading. However, there are some legitimate ways to deal with this problem, and there are some illegitimate ones. for example, it seems pretty legitimate to educate students on copyright law and university policies for those who are found infringing on it. It does not however seem reasonable to block all the software that enables file sharing (I don't need to mention that if we were to block everything that helps illegal file sharing, we'd be blocking the Internet). But that's exactly what the University of Florida did: they implemented a project called ICARUS that blocked all p2p software on the networks on its dorms. That's a little like building a national wall because a few illegal immigrants are getting across.

Anyways, ICARUS was, in its own way, a huge success. File sharing on campus dropped dramatically. But it also meant that legitimate uses of the Internet were also blocked - like hosting a server, or sharing legal music or video files (software like ICARUS puts little emphasis on the fair use of copyrighted material). And now the University of Florida wants to export that success to other schools. By spinning ICARUS off into a private company, cGRID it hopes to bring p2p-blocking software to every college campus in America (in fact a cGrid spokesman testified to Congress and said that just a few months ago).

I think the danger here is obvious, and it goes beyond the fact that students won't be able to share music. The danger is that colleges will block innovative and legal technologies that could be used for illegal purposes. The risk is that we protect copyright laws to the detriment of innovation. And that isn't just bad for students, it's bad for everyone.