Downloading music in college [Archive]

Praetor

03/14/10, 07:13 AM

I've been thinking a lot about college lately since I'm a senior and since music is such a huge part of my life it came up in mind. What is the policy of colleges in general when it comes to downloading music? I mean, of course they don't condone it, but do they monitor it at all? Can you download torrents, etc.? I'm thinking about Binghamton, Syracuse, and Hartwick in particular in case anyone reading this goes to one of those schools but I'd appreciate any/all input. Thanks!

Neo Cassady

03/14/10, 08:42 AM

My school cracked down on the ways lots of people (read:stupid people) did it: Limewire, DC++, etc. Other than that...

troubledbyinsects

03/14/10, 08:45 AM

This is something i'm interested in knowing about as well.

Brand-new-123

03/14/10, 08:55 AM

Torrent sites are blocked at my school, but Mediafire, Rapidshare, and Megaupload all work.

Smash Adams

03/14/10, 10:39 AM

I doubt Binghamton or Syracuse would crack down at all since they're so huge, I don't do torrents but I've had no problem with zip or rar files at my school, except for megaupload and rapidshare being the worst

fightoffyrdmns

03/14/10, 12:06 PM

I use Mediafire and the like. Never had a problem. Stuff like Limewire is blocked however.

Praetor

03/14/10, 12:28 PM

brandino15

03/14/10, 01:48 PM

The University of Iowa will shut off your internet and eventually kick you out of the dorms if they catch you downloading. It's pretty tough to get caught unless you're doing it excessively though. I get away with using a torrent site or mediafire/rapidshare once in a while (usually once or twice a week at most), but I generally just wait until i head home for a weekend to do any major downloading.

Alou

03/14/10, 01:48 PM

I've gotten a warning so I don't risk it anymore. My college is pretty good at tracking this.

Still lame though

Neo Cassady

03/14/10, 01:58 PM

Also, check for shared iTunes libraries within your dorm's network. I'm sure you can figure out what to do with those.

OnLettingGo

03/14/10, 03:04 PM

torrents and limewire are blocked at my college. but there are ways around it. as long as you don't download a shit ton of music you'll be fine

Foosimoo

03/14/10, 03:36 PM

I never download anything at school, but I'm only 15 minutes from home so on the weekends I usually go home and do it then.

ModusPwnens

03/14/10, 03:57 PM

The torrent program uTorrent lets you encrypt your traffic so your school's IT department can't see what you're downloading. I've been doing it since I got to college in 06 and haven't gotten caught.

Praetor

03/14/10, 04:45 PM

The torrent program uTorrent lets you encrypt your traffic so your school's IT department can't see what you're downloading. I've been doing it since I got to college in 06 and haven't gotten caught.
I use this program, could you tell me how to do it?

Antijoe88

03/14/10, 06:50 PM

I don't download at school, internet is slow anyway.

Jake Denning

03/14/10, 08:02 PM

I use this program, could you tell me how to do it?

im sure there's a good how-to video on youtube, thats how I learned how to port-forward to speed stuff up, took me a good while for me to figure it out though.

lightcollapse

03/14/10, 08:53 PM

Mediafire. There's enough uploaded files on the web these days that nothing else is at all necessary.

Chancetobe

03/14/10, 09:00 PM

True story: I picked my school in large part because of our 'network' and large amount of file sharing. Just this year they got rid of it. So, I don't know if downloading is as prevalent. But I use mediafire for music, stream tv and movies. Everyone file shares.

edit: I picked my school over Binghamton. But sometimes I wish I didn't. And Syracuse has a ton of pride. Binghamton will be cheaper though.

needles & pins

03/18/10, 04:52 AM

I went to Utica College, which is/was the retarded bastard child of Syracuse (but my diploma/degree is from SU so I can't complain), and I know a couple years ago when I was in the dorms they had things like Limewire, etc. blocked but not stuff from Mediafire, Rapidshare, etc. and I never had a problem using those and Google blogs. I don't know what they did (if anything) about torrents since I wasn't using them at the time. If crappy ol' UC had stuff in place, I'm sure Syracuse does to, and probably done better.

JustinSxE

03/18/10, 12:22 PM

The torrent program uTorrent lets you encrypt your traffic so your school's IT department can't see what you're downloading. I've been doing it since I got to college in 06 and haven't gotten caught.

If I remember correctly, it depends all on the school. You could try running a proxy... or seven. Or you could try what this fellow here suggested.

xshady121

03/18/10, 04:40 PM

The internet here is uber fast.

Want to download anything?

Google "[insert album here] mediafire"

Doing anything else is just stupid.

whenyourearound

03/18/10, 05:25 PM

Mediafire fo sho. I hate all those booshit limewire programs and torrent sites.

Epidemic*

03/25/10, 09:58 AM

I've never had any issues, just make sure you have a reliable torrent community. Try turning on force encryption on the torrents.

Airescape

03/25/10, 09:40 PM

My school monitors torrent use, and will e-mail your school e-mail account with a warning if they catch you.

Just use a VPN.

www.google.com

zonto

04/02/10, 04:07 PM

Whether or not your school "allows" it (aka if you get caught), you're still breaking the law and making kittens cry.

xshitsweakx

04/09/10, 02:43 PM

At my school, DC++ works, but of course that's only file sharing within the people on campus who use the program, so it's limited and it's tough to find unpopular items.

I've tried torrents and they downloaded, but they weren't viewable or listenable, however I did not get in trouble at all.

deFobbed14yrs

04/11/10, 04:46 PM

all the sites are blocked

nhoium

04/12/10, 08:15 AM

My college didn't monitor it but if they received a letter from a media company, like CBS, then they'll call you out. I got caught once and I had a take a really simple quiz about the copyright laws. The year after they started fining students $50. Your school may be different, but as long as you resort to private trackers, you should be fine.

rlevine62

04/12/10, 01:59 PM

mediafire is the greatest thing since napster first came around.

Stevesayshi

04/12/10, 03:38 PM

I attended UMBC in baltimore for the last 4 years. Being an IT school they know how to stop you. First offense using DC++ or limewire or torrent is a 250$ fine, a community service project, and no internet for 2 weeks. Second offense is no internet for a month plus all the other stuff again, 3rd offense you get kicked out of school.

tottivillarossi

04/12/10, 03:46 PM

For folks who have torrents blocked, some trackers have an option to download .torrent files as text files and then open them with torrent programs. Is that usually effective at circumventing the block?

http://www.audiomicro.com/free-arrested-development-gob-sound-clips-circumvent-download-740342

Sean Rizzo

04/15/10, 02:04 PM

A. If you're smart you would download off-campus. -_-;;

B. Downloading sucks anyway. See here: http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=1646272

saofan_315

04/17/10, 02:33 PM

Most schools have some sort of blockers or penalty system in place.

My advice is to just keep a list of music you want to download and whenever you go home or wherever you can download, bring that list with you and go nuts.

framebyframe

04/17/10, 06:05 PM

I use DC ++ and mediafire as well, but I haven't been caught. The only people I've heard of getting caught are the ones who make the hubs for DC ++

Sean Rizzo

04/17/10, 06:33 PM

I use DC ++ and mediafire as well, but I haven't been caught. The only people I've heard of getting caught are the ones who make the hubs for DC ++

Pretty much. Why take the time to kill each leaf of the plant one by one when you can just kill the plant at its root?

xshady121

04/17/10, 06:57 PM

My friend got expelled for a first offense for downloading/sharing. The police came in his room at 6am.

Then again, he left his torrents open, for a month nonstop, continuously sharing. Unblocked. It was going to happen sooner or later.

Sean Rizzo

04/17/10, 07:54 PM

sodamnclever

04/21/10, 05:37 AM

I'm pretty sure my campus just blocks limewire and programs like that. If you're living off campus though you need to be careful too, my roommate has been warned from our internet providers to stop downloading. I just go through mediafire and megaupload.

tommyishere

04/26/10, 06:30 PM

on Mediafire you cant edit the Song Info on iTunes?

Avalanche1

04/27/10, 01:00 PM

Stay away from torrents I'd say. I just download from blogs (rapidshare, megaupload) and haven't had any problems except for going over my daily download limit.

lightcollapse

04/29/10, 01:47 AM

Mediafire. No torrents.

Nick Le

04/29/10, 09:20 AM

Mediafire's my best friend. Rapidshare, megaupload, etc. are cool too.

Nick Le

04/29/10, 09:25 AM

on Mediafire you cant edit the Song Info on iTunes?

I don't have a problem with that. There have been very few albums I've downloaded where you couldn't, isn't too hard to find another link if that happens though.

Erik the Orange

07/18/10, 07:22 PM

Is using sites like megaupload and mediafire a no-no in college?
On Syracuse's website, it says you will get in trouble for P2P sites, like limewire, but Mediafire isn't p2p.
Any insight would be awesome!

takeiteasy_

07/22/10, 07:22 PM

I usually look in itunes shared libraries and make friends with people who have good collections

samsara

07/22/10, 07:35 PM

I used to do it at work. Havent checked to see if anything is blocked.

BigG1392

07/22/10, 07:39 PM

I'd think Mediafire would be fine... I'd personally stay away from torrents/p2p stuff.. I'm starting college this fall, just to be on the safe side I'll probably just wait to download until I get to an off-campus site with Wi-Fi.. Starbucks or something. Just so I don't run the risk of getting in trouble.

showmethefever

07/22/10, 09:43 PM

Mediafire is the best, good to see that they're not cracking down on that.

dashboardkid88

07/24/10, 01:45 PM

My school said they monitored what people were doing but I never heard of anyone getting in trouble for downloading music at my college

asthepenguinfly

07/24/10, 06:44 PM

I went to a small liberal arts school that didn't monitor anything at all, so you might want to try a smaller school if you're planning to partake of the torrents.

Under The Knife

07/25/10, 09:19 AM

Just use BTGuard: https://btguard.com/ and get off your moral high horses.

tommyishere

07/29/10, 11:37 AM

you dont continuously share music from Mediafire correct? Once you download the file its just goes to your iTunes account.

arms and danger

07/29/10, 02:33 PM

drop out of school. start a band.

FattyPatty

08/04/10, 08:05 AM

My school actually doesnt care...they dont block anything and if you download too much they send u a BS warning letter...and cuz its all teh same IP the Feds can't track shit...its actually pretty sweet...at the end of the year uTorrent stopped working but that wasn't the schools doing...I have a friend in IT and he lets me know all the inside details

Erik the Orange

08/24/10, 03:27 PM

So if you download music, just don't use p2p/filesharing?

newfoundmichael

09/05/10, 01:59 PM

My school doesn't allow it. I got an e-mail saying that if I got caught again I would get kicked out of school. I was using winrar to unzip files so I didn't think it was that easy to catch. Turns out I was wrong.

MattRM

09/06/10, 07:38 AM

newfoundmichael

09/06/10, 08:24 AM

Ouch... where were you getting the .rar files from? Sites like Mediafire/Megaupload/etc?

Yeah I was. Worst part is that I still bought a hell of a lot of music from our campus music store.

SLF

09/06/10, 10:06 AM

I'm on a Mac and I'm in my 4th year and I haven't been stopped. Everyone I know on PC's can't download.

I run like 5MB of the student network sometimes, too.

Jake Denning

09/28/10, 11:45 PM

Now that I finally can connect to the campus network, I just use it-leaked.

adfged

10/12/10, 07:12 AM

i'm at syracuse and in class ive see people downloading from sites like mediafire. seems like the safest thing

lovely864md

10/12/10, 06:23 PM

Just discovered my school's awesome DC++ hub.

Mibabalou

10/12/10, 07:17 PM

Just discovered my school's awesome DC++ hub.

ive heard of this, how do you even get to dc++?

i

lovely864md

10/12/10, 07:45 PM

ive heard of this, how do you even get to dc++?

i

Download DC++, find the address for your school's network (if it has one). Just ask around. I'm actually using ShakesPeer instead because DC++ is just for Windows and I have a Mac, but it's the same basic idea.

ncf_thesis

01/14/11, 05:23 PM

They usually block torrents, so you cant download them. Some campuses you can use mediafire.

PengusNiugnep

01/25/11, 08:59 AM

BigG1392

01/25/11, 10:10 AM

Does Starbucks monitor mediafire and stuff?

Not that I'm aware of... I went through my first semester using mediafire without any trouble.