Five Minute Tute: Spotify

Spotify is a music streaming service that allows users to listen to music, and is limited (at present) to a few countries in Europe (the UK included). It works on a peer-to-peer basis (P2P). This is a network architecture which means that any ‘node’ in the network architecture (in most cases your computer) surrenders some of its resource (processor, storage, and most importantly network bandwidth) to servicing other users on the P2P network. In other words  your machine becomes a server. 

This is the wrong question to ask. It should be ‘why does the University ban P2P software?’ of which Spotify is but one of many. The reasons are well-documented (see http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/oxford/rules/p2p.xml.ID=problems) but in summary the main problem with P2P software is that it may use up excessive bandwidth. So a single machine (node) running P2P software will actually be serving data to any other machine on that network (which could be anywhere in the world), and systems on networks that are perceived to have better bandwidth (e.g. like ours) are preferred in the P2P architecture. The user themselves may suddenly notice their machine begins to slow down. However, of more concern is the effect this might have on local networks, i.e. those within a college or department. Some of these are not high-capacity and uncontrolled use of P2P applications could really slow them down, to a point where academic and reasonable recreational usage suffers.

It is worthwhile noting that many students also fall foul of another issue with P2P. What they assume is that all they are doing is downloading material. What they do not realise is that they are actually also serving the material to the rest of the network. Film companies regularly watch out for this, i.e. computers serving up illegal copies of a movie, and we get a couple of letters a week which result in the users’ machines getting blocked (and usually a fine coming their way). By the way, we’re also getting letters from TV companies, software vendors, ebook providers ….

This probably isn’t an issue with Spotify though, as the material provided is legitimate, but it’s worth noting (again).

Use of P2P software on the network is banned – not just Spotify. BBC iPlayer, for over a year now, has moved away from the P2P model to an http download model (which the user can control). In effect what this means is you download the programme, but you do not then serve it back out to anyone on the network. So yes, there is bandwidth consumption during the download, but it is one way. My understanding is that 4OD also works on a download model.

The exception is Skype, but we have found a way to configure that so it does not flood the network. In fact we were the first University in the UK to do this, working alongside the people at Skype.

4. Why is this ban necessary at Oxford and not other university campuses?
This is simply not true. Go to most University web sites and search under ‘P2P’ and you will see that some form of ban is in place. Warwick, for example, list 24 applications which ‘must not be used’ (though they do not mention Spotify specifically). It was also odd that your spokesperson from Newnham College in Cambridge asked ‘Why would anyone ban it?’. I suggest they read the Cambridge Computing Services guidelines illustrating the pitfalls of P2P, and maybe talk to their colleagues at Darwin College (http://www.dar.cam.ac.uk/computers/conditions.shtml). 

In general we are looking at P2P software to see if it can be controlled to keep traffic levels reasonable, and inhibit copyright infringement. In this specific case we hope to talk to Spotify themselves (they’ve bee

n in touch), as we did in the past with Skype (which is allowed and Oxford set the pace in devising a way to allow its use without damaging the network). If there is a way of controlling the bandwidth use by the ‘node’, or turning file sharing off, or similar, then we may get somewhere.

Hard to tell. Most suppliers of P2P are becoming aware of the issues, and know there is a problem (especially in the domestic market where bandwidth is always tight). So they want to seek a solution as much as we do. However, the bottom line is we cannot allow the local networks to be put at risk and thus slow down the academic work of staff and students. But we recognise that the network is also for social purposes. Hopefully we can reach a solution that suits us all.