University of Kansas Adopts 'One Strike' Copyright Infringement Policy

NewmanKU writes "Eric Bangeman at Ars Technica writes that the University of Kansas has adopted a new, and very strict, copyright infringement policy for the students on the residential network. The university's ResNet website states that, 'Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is against the law. If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever. No second notices, no excuses, no refunds. One violation and your ResNet internet access is gone for as long as you reside on campus.' According to a KU spokesperson, KU has received 345 notices in the past year from organizations and businesses regarding complaints about copyrighted material downloading."

Comments

Due Process

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any clause to protect the due process rights of students?

Re:Due Process

[SamP2]

Tough luck pal, due process only applies in court. They'd have to follow it if they decided to sue you, throw you in jail for whatever, or something like that.

Cutting you off the campus net is an entirely private decision, no due process required by law.

Think of it like getting banned from a forum because the admin thinks you are a troll.

Re:Due Process

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, as agreed upon and detailed in the plethora of documents they sign - which now include this notice.

Just because you put something in your TOS does not make it legal or enforceable. IANAL, but I am an admin on a university network and we are frequently reminded that the students are paying customers with rights and as such we cannot arbitrarily ban them from using the system. Without some kind of watertight right of appeal someone probably will get caught as a false positive by this policy, sue, and win.

Oh crap...

[FrostedWheat]

From the universities page: (which I downloaded into my browser...)

If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever

And further down, on the same page! (Which my browser downloaded, remember)...

Copyright © 2005 by the University of Kansas

Wow, that is harsh! I guess that's me banned then :-)

Re:Oh crap...

[NickFortune]

Yep. In fact, as a signatory to the Berne Convention, in the US copyright exists in every work not explicitly released into the publci domain. Which makes it a particularly stupid thing to say. I mean it is fairly obvious that they mean "no unauthorised downloading of copyright material", but if they really plan to implement a "no excuses, no appeal" policy, you'd think they'd take the 30 seconds or so it needed to phrase the thing correctly.

Even then, it's still way OTT. Half the papers on Citeseer (for instance) are there in technical violation of the copyright of the journals where they were first published. The journals turn a blind eye, which is why the site can keep on, but I can see a lot of sudents getting banned, which considering how widely used citeseer is as an academic resource, is a but ridiculous.

I suppose the only other way they could implement the policy as expressed is to rely on the word "caught". That way, if they don't look for downloaders, they don't find them, and selective enforcement becomes the order of the day. I suppose it might be useful if the they forsee needing a pretext to silence unruly students.

Re:Baby Meet Bathwater

[ajs318]

Bollocks. Rule by fear always breaks down, sooner or later, because fear can be overcome. This is something that authoritarians don't seem to get. Fear of getting caught is not what demotivates the majority of people from committing crime. That's just a Tory oversimplification. If someone is really determined, they will analyse the balance of probabilities purely in terms of a favourable vs. unfavourable outcome with a cool head.

Once you force someone into a corner, where the choice is "do something that you fear or die", they will choose to live, because they're more afraid of dying than of whatever you were going to do to them. In fact, the whole "overcoming fear" thing is how cave-men evolved into us. Oh, wait, you said Kansas .....