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University of Utah Promises DMCA Crackdown
Milo Fungus writes "The University of Utah announced yesterday to all students, faculty, and staff that "the University will disable network access for any machine for which a DMCA complaint has been received" from the MPAA, RIAA, or member of the software industry. The full text of the memorandum can be found here. (Please be easy on the server and set up a mirror if you can.)"
To: All University of Utah Students, Faculty, and Staff
From: Stephen Hess
Associate Academic Vice President for Information Technology
Stayner Landward
Dean of Students
Date: March 14, 2003
Subject: Illegal Sharing of Copyrighted Materials
The purpose of this memo is to officially notify all students, faculty,
and staff, that it is a violation of federal law and University policy
to share and/or distribute copyrighted materials without the permission
of the copyright holder. Violators may be subject to civil and criminal
prosecution under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA), as well as personal sanctions specified in University policy.
The University has received a significant increase in complaints from
representatives of the motion picture, music recording, and software
industries. The majority of the complaints are directly related to the
use of file-sharing software, such as KaZaA, Gnutella, and similar
programs.
File sharing software is most commonly used to download music and other
media. Many do not realize that this software may turn your personal
computer into a server, or upload site, even if that was not your
intent. Files on your network connected PC may then be illegally shared
with every other person connected to the World Wide Web. It is
imperative that the file sharing capability of these systems be
disabled. If you do not know how to disable this function, please
contact the Help Desk at 581-4000.
Industry representatives aggressively monitor the Internet to discover
incidents of illegal file sharing. When violations are discovered, they
contact the network owner and/or the Internet Service Provider and
demand that the offending device be disconnected from the network. To
protect the user and the University from further culpability under the
DMCA or University policy, the University will disable network access
for any machine for which a DMCA complaint has been received.
To restore network service, the user must contact the Help Desk and
arrange to sign a document stating that the user has disabled the file
sharing function of their software and has agreed to discontinue all
illegal file sharing activity. If the user is named in additional
complaints, they will be referred to the appropriate University
committee for further review and action.
Action taken by the University to remedy a violation does not preclude
the copyright holder from seeking civil and/or criminal prosecution.
The law specifies civil liability of not less than $200 or more than
$2,500 per act, and criminal penalties up to $500,000, and/or
imprisonment for up to 5 years for the first offense.
Thank you for taking this notification seriously.
I'm posting anonymously to avoid self-identification. But I go to a Big10 school where this has been policy for three years now. Network access is shut off, with no notification, and the student then has to clear his/herself with IT to get back online. Usually it takes the student a few days to figure out what's going on -- and then they have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get to the stage where they can even sign saying they fixed the problem.
But, then, all MAC addresses are tied to a netid nowadays to prevent this lag time...
this is how most schools do it anyways (at least for first time complaints).
they turn off your network, you find your network not working, you call and find out what the deal is, they tell you, you fix the problem, you call and say so, they turn your netowrk back on.
They'll shut down network access for a student automatically, at the first receipt of any DMCA complaint? No investigation, nothing? I'm sure groups like the Scientologists, whom /. has covered previously, will find this much to their liking. Some student has posted information on a school site that some group doesn't like? Send a DMCA complaint, and the school won't blink twice before taking that shit down.
I'm sure the school thinks there will be a great deal of volume of complaints, much too many for it to deal fairly with each case, so it's better to just err on the side of caution and presume students are guilty from the get-go. Well, there will be a large volume of complaints, now that the school has completely dropped trow and spread cheeks.
[RIAA guy]Hey, Valenti! And you, BSA whore! Point your complaint mills at the University of Utah! They don't even check 'em![/]
We've all heard about crap like complaints from the MPAA (under penalty of perjury!) about someone sharing sharing Harry Potter files, only to find they're actually Harry Potter book reports. Yes, I'm sure the amount of legitimate stuff is swamped by the illegal copyright infringement, but that's no excuse for an institution with as important a role as a university to bend over like this.
I have two brothers and two sisters who are BYU students. My one brother might be one of the people in that picture, the other certainly isn't (he smiles too much...). I have an ex-roommate who went to U of U; he's a lawyer; figures.
BTW, the BYU computer accaptable use policy is here; note that everything is framed in terms of the Honor Code, not just what might be legally convienient for the University administration.
BYU has an information security research group; they even have at least one paper about Internet privacy.