File-sharing

File-sharing within Oberlin is possible through Direct Connect. Because CIT imposes severe penalties for students caught sharing copyrighted files by rightsholders, it is often a danger to use filesharing programs that connect college users to those in outside networks (e.g. Kazaa, Limewire, BitTorrent); however, it is possible to obtain files through systems wherein file-sharing is not active by default, such as IRC.

Another possible solution is to use peer-to-peer clients that allow sharing to be disabled, but disabling sharing is usually considered poor etiquette. Clients like Soulseek permit a compromise solution, wherein files are only shared with a user-specified list of users.

CIT uses a capping system that slows downloads down related to movie or music files out of the HTTP port range. This is why Quicktime works so poorly and it will cause very slow download speeds on all non-intraoberlin networks.

Note that, regardless of the fact that there is little or no mechanism in place for rightsholders to monitor a user's downloads so long as the user does not share files, it remains illegal to download copyrighted files that one does not own or have rights to.