Policing Networks is Expensive

Preventing illegal file sharing became the responsibility of colleges and universities in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008. This was a boon for the motion picture and recording industry associations, which lobbied hard for it.

My university recently offered a free music collection to students through iTunes U. I assume this is an effort to discourage illegal P2P sharing.

A recent survey by by The Campus Computing Project found annual costs per institution range from $29,000 to $408,000, and when personnel time is counted large institutions can easily spend more than half a million per year to enforce the law.