studious UC Davis senior with a clean disciplinary record, “Julie” was recently shocked to receive an email notification from Student Judicial Affairs requiring that they meet to discuss a policy violation. Her offense? A day earlier, she had downloaded a Shakira song.

It wasn’t the pop singer’s racy lyrics that got Julie in trouble but the very act of downloading the song for free and making it available for others to download, a violation of copyright law. As the entertainment industry sees it, Julie’s offense is no different from going into a store and taking a CD without paying for it. Yet digital thievery is occurring in masses, and the laws for cyberspace don’t seem as tangible to people as they do in a record store.

Previous Issues IT Times Index: Copyrights Business Contract FAQ Copyright Resources

It’s not surprising then, that digital copyright law has spurred a legal mess nationwide over just what constitutes a copyright violation and who is responsible for it. A federal judge recently ruled that Verizon, an Internet service provider (ISP), must hand over to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) the names of its customers suspected to be trading copyrighted music files via file-sharing programs like KaZaA. This means that the Internet is no longer an anonymous safeguard by which copyright infringers can avoid legal action.   

In another case, to the dismay of the music and movie industries, a federal judge ruled in favor of Grockster and StreamCast Networks — which makes the popular peer-to-peer program Morpheus — after the entertainment companies took legal action to shut down the service. In this post-Napster era, peer-to-peer (P2P) services no longer run on a centralized server; files are routed through thousands of users’ computers, which act as mini-servers and make it difficult to call the services themselves culprits of copyright violation. But this simply means that the industries are more inclined to immobilize copyright-infringement on an individual level. Such was the case for four college students sued by the RIAA for running small file-sharing networks on their campus’ in New York, New Jersey, and Michigan. Settlements ranged from $12,000 to $17,000 per student.      

The surge in college students’ copyright infringements over campus networks, especially by typically law-abiding students like Julie, has forced colleges to evaluate the issue more closely. Last month UC Davis Provost Virginia Hinshaw, Vice Provost John Bruno and Vice Chancellor Stan Nosek issued a letter to the campus community addressing the nearly threefold increase seen this year in violations on campus and warned of the possible consequences for individuals who use file-sharing software illegally.  

“The letter [from the administrators] represents how seriously the issue is being taken,” says Student Judicial Affairs Officer Donald Dudley.  

Downloading copyrighted media through campus networks has long been a popular reality. After all, what more conducive environment for the downloading of free media than the college campus — a place where bandwidth is plentiful and students’ pocket money scarce; where music, movies and games are a staple of dorm life? But media industries have been in a flurry lately to put an end to their unprecedented sales decline, which is due at least in part to the ease and thrift with which people download files and burn them onto blank CDs or DVDs.  

Movie and music companies are not only strategizing new anti-piracy efforts, but are also starting to rethink the way they do business. Last month, for example, Apple Computer launched a new service that charges users 99 cents per downloaded song. An assortment of other legal “pay-to-play” services are available for a monthly fee, but access to media files is still restricted. And the reality is, as long as files can easily be downloaded for free, pay-to-play services will be largely ignored, estimates UC Davis IT Policy Analyst Randy Moory.  

Until the industries find a lasting solution to their predicament, they’re hiring more people and developing robots specifically to scope out networks for violations. These piracy detectives can identify just about any piece of information about the violation, including what the file was and when it was downloaded.  

“There’s been a real growth in file sharing, and there are more fishermen out there,” says Moory.  

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) UC Davis and other college campuses have an option to respond to the industries’ infringement claims and avoid being liable themselves. The law states that ISPs may avoid liability for their users’ copyright violations provided that they block access to any infringing material of which the copyright holder has made them aware. In short, copyright holders (like Universal Studios) send notifications to ISPs (like UC Davis) when they discover files have been illegally transferred over the ISP’s network.

“The RIAA is becoming very aggressive in finding systems that are serving copyrighted materials,” Moory continues. “There has been evidence of this agression by the increased number of notices the campus receives.”

When UC Davis receives a DMCA notice involving a student offender, the Business Contracts office sends the alleged copyright violator an email notification, and the Internet port is disconnected from the network (or dial-in access terminated) until the matter is resolved.  Business Contracts refers the matter to Student Housing Judicial Affairs, Student Judicial Affairs, department administration or other authority as appropriate.  In the event that a student violator does not live in the residence halls, a mandatory meeting is scheduled between SJA and the violator, during which the violator signs a written agreement acknowledging the violation and assuring that the violation won’t occur again. Individuals living in residence halls must meet with an Area Conduct Coordinator to discuss the violation. Second-time offenders may get their computer use privileges terminated indefinitely.  

“When students’ ports are turned off, they realize how important it is to use the network for studying as opposed to downloading and sharing files,” says Dudley.

In addition, peer-to-peer software allows users’ files to be downloaded by others, sometimes without their knowledge.  Every time the computer is connected to the Internet, material on it is available to the peer-to-peer service to answer the requests of all the other peer-to-peer service users.  

“Many students are not aware that they are sharing their files, and are more than happy to get rid of [the peer-to-peer service] when they find this out,” Dudley says. It’s important to ask, Dudley points out, “Do you really want your computer acting as a server?”

In some cases copyright violators aren’t even aware of their wrongdoings. Though the majority of infringements are by students, there are staff violations as well. Nearly 50 percent of staff violations occur when a staff member’s computer is hacked into and used by another party to transfer copyrighted material. This phenomenon is another reminder that all campus constituents should run updated virus-protection software, safeguard all passwords, and regularly apply corrective patches from software vendors. Staff and faculty may obtain inexpensive anti-virus software by purchasing the campus Internet software CD, Bovine Online, at the Campus Bookstore Computer Shop in the MU, or by visiting the software site available from http://my.ucdavis.edu/.

Of course, some staff, like students, are knowingly downloading copyright-protected media. The campus is currently determining how to deal with this relatively new problem.  

“We’ve always had Student Judicial Affairs to deal with student wrongdoings, such as plagiarism or test-cheating. So it was natural for them to get involved in enforcing the copyright rules to students. But copyright compliance issues for staff or faculty require a different mechanism,” explains Robert Ono, the campus IT Security Coordinator.  

As a result, Ono and Human Relations’ administrators are meeting with the Campus Misuse Committee to help promote compliance with copyright laws among faculty and staff.

The copyright violators aren’t the only ones affected by the punishment to this crime. For example, English professor Andy Jones, who says a great deal of his communication with students occurs over email, recently encountered a communication barrier when one of his students was disconnected from his Internet port for a DMCA violation. One person’s violation can become another person’s inconvenience.

The need to disseminate this message was the driving force behind the letter that UC Davis issued, but mere awareness of the impact of illegal file sharing doesn’t seem to be enough to get people to stop doing it. After asking several students on campus whether the letter had any impact on their decision to violate copyright laws, the responses all turned up a negative. Much of their apathy seems to stem from a lack of sympathy for the Big Media Moguls, not to mention the fact that many students have never known any different. Growing up with services like Napster has made many students accustomed to freebies.

 Nonetheless, as an ISP, the campus has an obligation to uphold the law. As such, campus officials have been wondering what measures it must take to get people to stop copyright infringement.  Possible considerations have included harsher penalties for first-time offenders and the institution of a fine structure in which the violator must pay a fee to have their port turned back on, says Dudley. Any discussion on penalties would require careful thought and campus consultation to determine the scope of such penalties and how they might apply to students and non-students.

 The campus will also continue a widespread education campaign about the do’s and don’ts of copyrights. There still remain legitimate uses of file-sharing for educational purposes. In order to help everyone keep all this information straight, the UC Office of the President is currently working with each of the campuses to create a UC-wide copyright Web site with resources for understanding the rules and ramifications of breaking them. Also, a handy FAQ sheet is on the Business Contracts Web site at http://vcadmin.ucdavis.edu/contracts/FAQ.html, with further copyright information at http://vcadmin.ucdavis.edu/contracts/Copyright%20Resources.html. Whatever lengths the campus is willing to go to, it is certain that the battle will not be an easy one. Copyright infringement has become so mainstream that many people have become desensitized to its implications and consequences.     

Unless, of course, you’re one of the four students sued last month by the RIAA.  

 “When parents have to pay upwards of twenty thousand dollars for a settlement to the recording industry and attorney fees, then people will care,” says IT Security Coordinator Robert Ono.