EHS-James Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 Hi all, trying to think of some good ways to deter kids from storing music on our system, short of continuously deleting it. With music/media etc a blanket ban on music files wont work, it would just interfere. I figured the best way would be to create some sort of batch to search for and replace all mp3s with some lovely Rick Astley, and hopefully pester them to keep it on their phones/usb etc. Alas my script skills are a little lacking. Couldn't seem to find the necessary tools in Goldwave, although I did find some easy options like fadeouts, reversals, flanges etc to distort and generally ruin the music. What do you guys do?
sonofsanta Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 Ban them from the network for a week for wasting my file server space and ignoring the line of the AUP that states the network is for learning only and not for storing media on except where required for lessons. I usually find out when someone's filled My Music because FSRM emails when someone gets to 90% of their quota, and it doesn't take many 320kbps VBR MP3s to fill their area...
EHS-James Posted February 27, 2012 Author Posted February 27, 2012 Ban them from the network for a week for wasting my file server space and ignoring the line of the AUP that states the network is for learning only and not for storing media on except where required for lessons. I usually find out when someone's filled My Music because FSRM emails when someone gets to 90% of their quota, and it doesn't take many 320kbps VBR MP3s to fill their area... Emails aren't a bad idea, but we have a lot of photography students who we typically allocate 1gb or more to. Banning is nice in theory, until a typically unsupportive/ignorant/non-understanding teacher and/or SLT say they should be unblocked. We have a good AUP but it means diddly squat when it can be so easily undermined by people in positions of authority, who quite often don't/wont plan a non ICT factor as a back up for such cases. Frustrating! But that's why I was thinking of a more subtle annoying way of doing it. I'll certainly however check out the above link, could save oodles of time!
ToyHeartsFan Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 replace all mp3s with some lovely Rick Astley So you want to replace their illegal file with an illegal Rick Astley track
EHS-James Posted February 27, 2012 Author Posted February 27, 2012 (edited) My copyright infringement > than yours! Heh. Our govt likes to pour money away, maybe they will pay for the broadcasting rights for us. We're only a school of 600! Edited February 28, 2012 by Dos_Box
BHMS Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 Use a script to replace infringing mp3 files with rickrolls with the same file name. 1
gshaw Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 Or somehow overwrite the files with 0 byte ones so they'll think they've been clever and beat the system... until it plays (or doesn't!)
localzuk Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 How about - creating a specific drive for use by those students that need access to music for their lessons - with that drive governed by the teacher. Set it at a couple of gigs maximum. Then, just blanket ban music from home drives?
cneilson6 Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 have you tried setting up FSRM on the student filestores? we have it setup so it emails us letting us know who has what saved and also automatically sends them a nice email informing them that it is illegal etc etc.
mthomas08 Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 Hi all, trying to think of some good ways to deter kids from storing music on our system, short of continuously deleting it. With music/media etc a blanket ban on music files wont work, it would just interfere. I figured the best way would be to create some sort of batch to search for and replace all mp3s with some lovely Rick Astley, and hopefully pester them to keep it on their phones/usb etc. Alas my script skills are a little lacking. Couldn't seem to find the necessary tools in Goldwave, although I did find some easy options like fadeouts, reversals, flanges etc to distort and generally ruin the music. What do you guys do? I have setup disk quota, anyone with mass amount of files I drop their their quota and delete the music - this seems to work well.
Arthur Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 Use a script to replace infringing mp3 files with rickrolls with the same file name. What about a random selection of white, pink, brown, blue, violet and grey noise?
Banford Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 I have setup disk quota, anyone with mass amount of files I drop their their quota and delete the music - this seems to work well. +1 This. Why waste time doing anything else? We're also in a position where we can't ban anyone from the network as it will just be overruled by any teacher.
mac_shinobi Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 How about - creating a specific drive for use by those students that need access to music for their lessons - with that drive governed by the teacher. Set it at a couple of gigs maximum. Then, just blanket ban music from home drives? Then they will store illegal music on the music drive and not the home drive mixed in with there music lesson music files..... As per my above post ref EduSweep ??
localzuk Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 Then they will store illegal music on the music drive and not the home drive mixed in with there music lesson music files..... As per my above post ref EduSweep ?? If music is being used for education, ie. by the kids for a project, or by a teacher as an example, then they can use it and wouldn't be breaking the law (per section 32 of the education act). The only issue is that acknowledgement is required.
Trapper Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 I once heard of someone (*AHEM*) stealing it and then making the worst offenders listen to their most embarrasing music in the office. However that was for the staff, so as for the students ...
EHS-James Posted February 28, 2012 Author Posted February 28, 2012 Thanks for all the suggestions. In a logical world a shared drive where they could just dump music so it wasn't the same songs times 400 in each profile, heh. Don't think fair use would cover that Will be trying the sweeper today, but deleting just the boring option hah! Def guna flange/distort some of the bigger offenders.
JJonas Posted February 28, 2012 Posted February 28, 2012 Thanks for all the suggestions. In a logical world a shared drive where they could just dump music so it wasn't the same songs times 400 in each profile, heh. Don't think fair use would cover that No dont do that. I know of a case where a network manager got so fed up with deleting pirated music from a company server he set up an MP3 drive and allowed the staff to use it to store music. The company got audited the MP3 drive was found and the company got a big fine and the network manager lost his job.
sonofsanta Posted February 28, 2012 Posted February 28, 2012 Thanks for all the suggestions. In a logical world a shared drive where they could just dump music so it wasn't the same songs times 400 in each profile, heh. Don't think fair use would cover that Will be trying the sweeper today, but deleting just the boring option hah! Def guna flange/distort some of the bigger offenders. Well if you can really be bothered, recording yourself humming a little fanfare on a Kazoo and then declaring "Stealing music is naughty! Wasting server space is naughty! Stop doing it!" and write a script that a) copies out each MP3 file to another location (in case you need to restore it as they really do need it) b) logs the filename in a variable c) copies in your announcement and renames it to the file name you just grabbed... everything will look normal until they try and play it. It could be argued that it might just be a waste of your time going that far, though
broc Posted February 28, 2012 Posted February 28, 2012 reset their permissions for their music files & prevent them from accessing them. We frequently have trouble differentiating the files that are genuinely needed thanks to 'clever' exam boards that think getting the kids to design a music download website is a 'good' idea.... Staff will suggest a handful of files.... students take that to mean their entire music collection... Rather than delete them & have the hassle of recovery, I deny their access & wait until they squeal, then we have a face to face discussion with them about which 4 of the 250 music files they really need..... time consuming, but eventually the message starts to spread.... I don't think we will ever win though. It doesn't help when teaching staff (& SMT) take such a cavalier attitude towards copyright violation.
localzuk Posted February 28, 2012 Posted February 28, 2012 (edited) Ok, some clarification is needed with regards to copyright and music it seems. It is not a 'fair use' condition at all in the UK to use music for or during teaching and learning - it is a specific exemption under Section 32 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998. Specifically, the law states that: Copyright in a sound recording, film or broadcast is not infringed by its being copied by making a film or film sound-track in the course of instruction, or of preparation for instruction, in the making of films or film sound-tracks, provided the copying— a) is done by a person giving or receiving instruction, and b) is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement, and provided that the instruction is for a non-commercial purpose. So, having a shared drive with music on which the kids are using for their work is completely legal and nothing to do with fair use - don't apply general copyright law to education without checking the actual laws that apply. Also, the acknowledgement can be ignored if it would be impractical to do so - No acknowledgement is required in connection with copying as mentioned in subsection (1), (2) or (2A), or in connection with anything done for the purposes mentioned in subsection (3), where this would be impossible for reasons of practicality or otherwise. Edited February 28, 2012 by localzuk
EHS-James Posted February 28, 2012 Author Posted February 28, 2012 Well back ups and thus restoring legit files is no issue, I could as suggested copy everything to one of unbacked up NAS we have just so something isn't lost in the 2 week cycle we run. Like has been said for various issues be they coursework, teachers, slt, deleting and banning is just not proving too effective, which is why I think being annoying towards their little collections could win the battle for a while at least, and if it's automated I can just run it every so often. The Kazoo option sounds hilarious. Audit wise, yeah can't remember the last time that happened so I am treating it as somewhat pending.
mac_shinobi Posted February 28, 2012 Posted February 28, 2012 Ok, some clarification is needed with regards to copyright and music it seems. It is not a 'fair use' condition at all in the UK to use music for or during teaching and learning - it is a specific exemption under Section 32 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998. Specifically, the law states that: So, having a shared drive with music on which the kids are using for their work is completely legal and nothing to do with fair use - don't apply general copyright law to education without checking the actual laws that apply. Also, the acknowledgement can be ignored if it would be impractical to do so - I wasn't reffering to the legality of it, I was just stating that they could have something like the following * 4 music projects ( legit things that they are working on for music studies etc ) * Music files ie wma, mp3, etc of music that is stored on your network which has not been obtained in the correct ways ie bit torrent etc in the same storage area ( home drive / mapped network drive which is effectively stored on the schools storage space and hence makes the school / the IT Department liable for storing material that shouldn't be stored there, regardless of copyright infringement or whatever ). This is due to not having any blanket block or not keeping a close eye on what is stored by using something like edusweep etc
localzuk Posted February 28, 2012 Posted February 28, 2012 I wasn't reffering to the legality of it, I was just stating that they could have something like the following * 4 music projects ( legit things that they are working on for music studies etc ) * Music files ie wma, mp3, etc of music that is stored on your network which has not been obtained in the correct ways ie bit torrent etc in the same storage area ( home drive / mapped network drive which is effectively stored on the schools storage space and hence makes the school / the IT Department liable for storing material that shouldn't be stored there, regardless of copyright infringement or whatever ). This is due to not having any blanket block or not keeping a close eye on what is stored by using something like edusweep etc I was replying to JJonas really, but others replied in between. 1
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