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File Sharing Contents:
Explanation Of Copyright Infringement
It is illegal to make an electronic copy (including downloading) of any movie or song or video or image without the express permission of the owner even if you have purchased a tape or cd with the video or music on it. If you do make an electronic copy (including downloading one from another machine by file sharing) it is illegal to distribute that copy. Distribution means you let others download a copy of the file from your machine.
Since musicians, record companies and movie producers are all trying to SELL their work, you are in effect stealing (not paying for) what they own and then giving it away to others for free.
The university's policies prohibit copyright infringement of any kind. When you participate in file sharing without securing permission you put yourself at risk for legal action taken against you by the copyright owners. In addition this behavior puts the university at risk because our computing resources are used for illegal activities.
How Copyright Complaints Are Received And Processed
Running peer-to-peer file sharing software allows anyone in the world to look at the files on your machine that are marked as shared. The owners of these files have the time, money, and means to search for their property on those programs.
In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the university, in its role as your Internet Service Provider, handles complaints from copyright holders. Project NEThics provides notification to users when it receives a formal written complaint from a copyright holder. We ask you to remove the infringing material from your machine and notify us that you have complied with our request.
The complaints we receive provide the Internet Protocol address used to transmit the material. Your identity is not provided to the complainant. If the copyright holder decides to file a lawsuit against you, a subpoena must be issued to obtain your name and address from the university.
Since the distribution of a copyrighted file without permission from the copyright owner is a violation of the "Policy on the Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources (www.nethics.umd.edu/aup), Project NEThics keeps a record of the incident.
How Repeat Offenses Are Handled
If we receive a subsequent copyright complaint involving your IP address, you are required to come in to our office to speak with a member of our staff about your use of university resources. At that time, students will be referred to the Department of Resident Life Office of Rights and Responsibilities or to the Office of Student Conduct for the case to be adjudicated. Faculty and staff members' respective supervisors will be notified. Violations may result in revocation of computing resource privileges, or other sanctions according to university policies and procedures.
Limit Your Liability
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been very active in pursuing litigation against who they have determined to be sharing files illegally. In the first round of lawsuits filed in the spring of 2003, four students reached out-of-court settlements ranging between $12,000 to $17,000 for their infringement which involved hosting local campus file sharing networks. Since then, the RIAA has launched thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits against alleged file-swappers. The average cost of settling those actions is $3,000.
We urge you to limit your risk by removing files of questionable copyright from your system and/or disabling the file sharing functionality on your file sharing program.
The University of Chicago has a very helpful site with information on how to disable file sharing in popular programs (please note that there are some programs that they recommend not using): http://security.uchicago.edu/guidelines/peer-to-peer/ Duke University also has instructions on disabling filesharing in different programs at this webpage (on the left-hand side of the page): http://www.oit.duke.edu/helpdesk/filesharing/steps.html.
Important Items for Students to Know
- Make sure the e-mail address you have on file with the university and on Testudo, is one that you check regularly because this is our main source of communication. Also, make sure that your voicemail is activated.
- Respond in a timely manner to contacts from Project NEThics or the OIT Security group. It can keep your network access active!
- Peer-to-peer programs typically operate with default file sharing activated. If your computer is busy sharing files out to the world, you are at increased risk of detection.
- Sharing songs, movies, games or other software is the right of the copyright holder. Even if you own a copy, you don't have permission to share it with friends.
- Some material available on peer-to-peer file sharing networks is virus-infected. You are at risk of causing damage to your system and losing important files if a virus infection takes hold.
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