To:
Dr. Erickson (ECE Department Chair)
Dr. Alt (EE 281 Instructor)
abuse@umr.edu (UMR Computing Resources Abuse Reporting Address)

cc:
Neal Sims Ritchey

From:
Dr. Kurt Kosbar

RE:
Copyright violation and EE 281 solution manual.

It appears to me that the document "Solutions Manual Electrical Engineering
Principles and Applications 3rd Ed." is being openly shared on the computer
with IP address 131.151.141.123, and in particular at:

\\131.151.141.123\My Documents\Homework\EE281 Circuits I\Book Answers

The same computer also has an assortment of what appears to be pirated
videos, music files, programs and computer games.

I don't know who is responsible for operating this computer, but I believe
that IP address resolves to the computer name r01nsrbb5.desktop.umr.edu.
The UMR on-line directory indicates that Mr. Neal Sims Ritchey has a user
name of nsrbb5. Perhaps this is just coincidence, and if it is, I apologize
for bringing Mr. Ritchey into this discussion.

I am not the copyright holder for this particular document, nor am I the
instructor for EE 281. For those reasons, I don't believe I have any
authority to request that this document be removed from the web site, or
that any punitive actions be taken against who ever posted it.

However as an employee of UMR, I think I do have the
obligation to point out activities which could unnecessarily
expose the university to risk. I am concerned that should
Pearson Education Ltd. (the copyright holder), learn that a UMR
operated machine is openly distributing their work illegally - they
could bring legal action against the school. I would
encourage the people who have the authority over the operation
of our network, to take action on this matter.

I also feel I have an obligation to the EE 281
instructor, to notify him when I know that someone is
trying to interfere with the operation of his class.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ritchey, Neal Sims (UMR-Student)
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 4:24 PM
To: Kosbar, Kurt Louis; Erickson, Kelvin Todd; Alt, Leroy H.; abuse@umr.edu
Subject: RE: Copyright abuse on EE 281 Homework Solutions



To all whom it may concern:



My name is Neal Ritchey, and this is my computer in question.



I was unaware of that particular file being copyrighted -- I either downloaded it from the book's website when i took the course a couple semesters ago or copied it from the included CD-ROM. I do not know wether or not it is copyrighted, but the reason I have it (along with my other homework) shared is so that i can easily access it from any campus computer by accessing my IP address.



On the subject of "interfering with class", this material was given to us either by the instructor or by the publishers of the book. It is openly avalable to any student who took EE281 at the same time I did. If you actually read the file, you will notice that it is numeric answers, not solutions, to random homework problems from the book. This information was barely of any use to me when I took the course.



On the subject of "sharing copyrighted information", like I said above, these files are shared for my convenience. I do not own a printer and must therefor utilize campus printers in order to turn in assigned homeworks. I find that sharing files is the easiest way to accomplish that. I also feel that snooping around my computer and shared files is tatamount to walking into my opened garage door and digging through file folders i have lying around. I understand that I take a responsibility for the files that i share, and i realize that i do have several music and video files shared, but you do not know the extent of the copyright on any of the material. I use these files from other machines often, and as to my knowledge I am not responsible for distributing any of this copyrighted information. (Also keep in mind that all of the assignments written by myself with my name and date on them are copyrighted material to myself).



As for the possible copyright infringement on the EE book, i will see if i can set up a password for my homework folder, or if not, remove the files completely. They are no longer of particular use to me.



I hope to resolve this issue, I don't want to undermine any teacher's authority in a class. I must go though, I am writing this from an ME lab. Please email me back with any questions/concerns.



Thanks

Neal Ritchey

Mr. Ritchey,

Thank you for your reply on this. I'm just on my way out of the office, but
I wanted to reply because I know this can be stressful.

The ECE department has a copy of the solution manual I mentioned. In the
preface of that manual it says it is copyrighted in 2005, 2002 and 1997 by
Pearson Education, Inc. I did not thoroughly check to see exactly which
problems you listed were exact matches to that document. I noticed that
your page #1 is was nearly an exact copy of the page #1 from the solution
manual I mentioned. I also noticed that you had 17 chapters of solutions,
and the solution manual contained 17 chapters. From that I inferred that
there was probably a copyright violation.

I could be wrong, but I thought copyright laws allowed you to openly share
information like this only when you have the permission of the copyright
holder, or if it is in the public domain. I assume you did not contact
Pearson Education Inc. to obtain permission to post this material. However
perhaps Pearson Education Inc. put it in the public domain. Would you mind
if I contact them and ask them for a clarification on this? Would you mind
if I used your name in that communication?

I located the files in question by using the "Seek42" search engine. My
understanding is that students must "opt-in" to have Seek42 index their
files. In other words, it is my understanding that you had to knowingly
place these files in a publicly accessible folder, and then specifically
request the Seek42 engine to tell others about their existence. I did not
keep a record of what word I typed into Seek42 to find your files, but it
was something generic, such as "Circuits". Following a Seek42 link to your
computer, seems to me like following a "Google" link to a publicly
accessible web page - It's something you expect people to do (especially if
you specifically ask Google to search your machine). The other files I
alluded to, were also indexed by "Seek42", and locatable with common search
phrases.

I have no objection to you posting your own work, to which you own the
intellectual property rights. I don't think I implied there was anything
wrong with that, but if you did read that into my comments I apologize.

It appeared to me that you may be using the campus network to distribute
unauthorized copies of a document. When I come across something like this,
I believe it is my responsibility to report it. Failure to do so, I believe
could expose UMR to liability - should the copyright holder learn that I
knew of (or suspected) an improper act was occurring and took no effort to
report it.

I believe it is up to our IT department to decide if what you are
distributing is improper, and if any action needs to be taken. I simply
meant to report what I found, and to let them do their job. I have every
confidence in the competence of our IT staff, and am certain they will not
improperly penalize students who are following the UMR computing guidelines.

Since this matter involves a current EE course, I thought it was appropriate
to copy the chair of ECE and the instructor for the class. This also helps
them know how I treat students in such matters - so they can inform me if
they believe I am acting improperly.

Kurt Kosbar

I understand, however I was not aware of these shared files. I told in a second emial to Kurt Kosbar that I will take a look at what files I have shared on my comptuer sometime this weekend. I did not copy these files for the intent of distributing them freely to students, I copied them onto my harddrive so I could access them conveniently throughout the semester.

Like I said in the previous email, I will look into a password system on my shared files, although I have looked into it in the past and couldn't find the option. I will ask someone who knows a little bit more about computer networking than I.

And if I could afford a USB drive, I could easily afford my own printer. But I can't afford either, so sharing files between my home and campus is the most convenient method of having access to all of my files from school.

Again, I will look at the files this weekend.







nsr

Like walking into an open garage and browsing through your file folders? More like gazing into an open garage and seeing a pile of dead babies.

Now maybe you guys will understand why I don't share on "seek42"

Like walking into an open garage and browsing through your file folders? More like gazing into an open garage and seeing a pile of dead babies.

Now maybe you guys will understand why I don't share on "seek42"

[Insert humorous animated gif of a vast amount of momentum being transferred from a swinging sledgehammer to an unsuspecting pair of balls]

lol, okay, right...first of all, You guys are the ones who bring it upon yourself, using and sharing over p2p, warez should be underground like it used to be, not on p2p. I agree that it is pretty stupid what UMR is doing to you, but the fact that you allowed samba sharing of your illegal material for *anyone* to access it is just plain stupid, come on if it was for your personal use you would password protect it, or use a better way of accessing it remotely. Come on, be safer than that, I mean the campus -allows- seek, but it shouldn't You guys can keep telling yourselves that I'm an asshole for not sharing whatever I have, but just remember that I am not dumb enough to share my ip on a samba share that easily gives out where I live, and all of my information here @ UMR.

nsrbb5, it sucks what is happening to you, but just remember, they can read what you write here also, it's not *private*.

And yes, that is a picture of me, why would you hate me for what I look like? that's pretty dumb...

what do you recommend as a better way to access it remotely?