Talk:Oxford University anti-peer-to-peer policy hits legal music service Spotify

This is single source - the student paper - which the Telegraph and Sky News have cribbed from with no additional research.

I became aware there might be a story around this yesterday via twitter, one of the BBC's reporters quickly looked into it and tweeted that there is no official ban. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * How about para 4.10 of this set of university IT rules: "Spotify is a music streaming service. It relies on a peer-to-peer system for distribution of content, and its use is therefore forbidden on the University network."? Bencherlite (talk) 11:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Against the rules and an actual ban are quite different. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Were there an actual ban, it'd be reported here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/default.stm As I say, the BBC looked into it and found it's not as blanket and draconian as some sources imply. Thus, it isn't an official ban by the university; it is some colleges implementing policy. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't follow. (1) Just because the BBC hasn't reported it, it isn't true? (2) The page I linked above isn't a college page, it's a university page.  Use of Spotify on the university network is forbidden / banned (I don't see the difference between the two, perhaps you can explain). (3) Students were clearly able to listen to Spotify in the past, and then they couldn't - see the Cherwell story, where it says "Students were baffled when Spotify suddenly stopped working" and one student is quoted as saying "I hoped that it was a technical glitch, and that the university would be able to fix it". Bencherlite (talk) 11:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The BBC didn't report it because one of their staff (https://twitter.com/ruskin147) checked out the story and found out it was not as specified by Sky and the Telegraph. They're regurgitating what the student paper wrote so this is single source. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sigh. Can't be bothered to argue this one anymore, so just delete it, please. Bencherlite (talk) 11:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, looking again, it's not single-source. The Telegraph has a quotation from a university spokeswoman, which isn't in the Cherwell article; so there's more than one report that the service is banned. Just because one BBC journalist contacted one student who didn't think that there was a ban doesn't mean that the story is wrong. I'd like another pair of eyes on this, please. Bencherlite (talk) 13:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem. Where I'd be concerned is that this is just a few of the University's colleges getting round to technically implementing their "no filesharing" policy. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added a sentence to the article mentioning that the ban appears to have inconsistencies, as noted in the sources, but the Cherwell article and the Telegraph article are both along the lines of it being a newly-imposed university ban rather than a badly-coordinated college implementation of something that was already imposed at some colleges (none of the Cherwell article is along the lines of Spotify having previously been inaccessible at X college but accessible at Y college). Bencherlite (talk) 19:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It might, considering the details apparent, be better to title this Oxford University anti-peer-to-peer policy hits legal music service Spotify. A tad long but, more accurate. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Review of revision 941139 [Passed]
'as these require more bandwidth.' This generalisation is unsubstantiated and should be removed. 94.193.134.98 (talk) 12:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)