 9:00 a.m., May 9, 2003--There is growing concern in the entertainment industry about the illegal downloading of copyright material on the Internet and several organizations have taken an aggressive stance, with college students as a particular target.
Karl Hassler, UD’s associate director of Network and Systems Services, addresses questions related to the issue.
Q. Recently, entertainment organizations, such as the Recording Industry Association of America, have been cracking down on illegal downloading of materials such as movies and music found online. College campuses have been a focus of their actions. Is such downloading a major problem at the University of Delaware?
A. I would say the entertainment industry thinks it is a big problem on all campuses throughout the country. Here at the University of Delaware, we take allegations of copyright infringement seriously. While we feel we have had our successes, more work needs to be done. We are stepping up our efforts to educate students and employees that copyright infringement is stealing and that they are responsible for the security of their own PCs.
Q. How many allegations of copyright infringement has the University of Delaware processed this academic year?
A. The University has processed 214 allegations of copyright infringement of all types—movies, music, software, pictures and content on personal web sites—this academic year through April 30.
Q. Does downloading of entertainment materials cause problems beyond copyright infringement?
A. Downloading anything from a source you don’t know or trust can cause many problems. If the downloaded file contains a virus or Trojan, it cannot only affect that computer but others, as well. It can be used remotely to spread itself through network probes or begin using the target computer as an uncontrolled file-swapping server, consuming large amounts of network bandwidth, often without the user knowing. Even if a hidden Trojan or virus is not present, downloading copyright materials impacts network performance for everyone because of the multiplier effect. Many times, a single downloaded work will be automatically offered, or shared-out, to the world through the user’s peer-to-peer software. When others make copies of the file, more and more bandwidth is used, slowing things down for everybody.
Q. How does the University of Delaware deal with students found to be downloading copyright materials? Is punishment stepped up for repeat offenders?
A. Our standard procedure is to act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the alleged offending material and pass along complaints to the users. If it is a first incident, we ask that they respond in writing that they will immediately stop distributing copyright material through their network connections. Many times, the users do not know their systems are sharing-out copyright works to the world, so they must have their systems examined.
In such cases, the University’s IT User Services office contacts users and sets up times for them to bring their systems in for examination. Primarily, they look for evidence that the system is not properly secured against unauthorized access and modification. Secondly, users are educated about their responsibility to keep their machines secure by setting a password, keeping University-supplied anti-virus software current and keeping the operating system current by downloading and installing free vendor-supplied security patches and updates. All users are responsible for what their systems do on the network, so if a user is negligent in keeping it secure and it ends up breaking the law, the user will be held accountable.
If the violation is a repeat incident, we file a complaint with the Student Judicial Office for violations of UD’s Policy for Responsible Computing.
Q. Besides notification and punishment, what steps is the University of Delaware taking to educate the campus community about such network issues?
A. The Code of the Web educational campaign [www.udel.edu/codeoftheweb] promotes awareness of the rules, laws and regulations that govern responsible behavior on the network.
We also regularly revise the questions included in the Electronic Community Citizenship Examination (ECCE) required of all students before they can register a computer. Copyright and bandwidth questions have been updated to speak to the beliefs we are seeing in students arriving on campus with computers. The questions stress that downloading movies, songs and other works without permission are copyright violations, which are, in turn, crimes, and that such actions will matter here, even if they did not seem to matter back home with students’ old Internet service providers.
Q. Is the University of Delaware at risk if it fails to take corrective actions?
A. The University meets the criteria of the Safe Harbor Provisions of the 1998 Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, or OCILLA, codified as section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). As long as it is in compliance with the Safe Harbor provisions, the University is sheltered from claims of copyright infringement resulting from the activities of “customers.” Only students are liable for monetary damages and possible prosecution.
Article by Neil Thomas
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