Takedown or DMCA Notices are the most common type of copyright infringement notices that the University receives. Content owners such as the RIAA and MPAA send these notices to the ISP from which the file was made available.
When Cornell, as an ISP, receives a takedown DMCA notice regarding a particular user, it submits the user's account to the Network Quarantine process. That process causes the user's campus connection to be routed to a single link that has information about the notice.
The user is asked to check a box stating that he or she understands
Once the user checks that box, the network connection is restored.
If the same user subsequently receives a second takedown notice, he or she will then be required to take the Copyright Education Program. Failure to take the program will result in a meeting with the Office of Judicial Administration.
The Office of Judicial Administration will automatically adjudicate a third notice to the same user, generally with the consequence that the user's connection to the Cornell network is terminated for a period of four weeks.
If you don’t acknowledge receipt of an infringement notice in a timely manner, your network access may be suspended.
As a matter of Cornell University policy, you must comply with the procedures. It is important to understand that even if you comply fully with the University’s takedown procedure, you are not shielded from potential liability from third parties like the RIAA, who retain the right to sue you for the underlying infringing activity.
The RIAA sometimes sends preservation notices to Cornell requesting that Cornell preserve contact information of the persons associated with IP addresses alleged to have infringed their copyrighted works. Cornell will generally comply with such notices; however, Cornell will not release the contact information based on the preservation letter alone. Preservation notices are sometimes followed by early settlement letters (see below).
The RIAA sends campus ISPs such as Cornell “Early Settlement Letters” to be forwarded to the persons associated with IP addresses alleged to have infringed their copyrighted works. The early settlement letter advises the user that he or she may soon be subject to a lawsuit in connection with the allegedly infringing activity, provides a sample of the sound recordings that the user allegedly infringed, and suggests that user consider settling the claim to avoid the RIAA filing their claims in court (the “Early Settlement Letter” includes a link to a settlement website where a credit card payment can be made ).
Since December 2008, the RIAA has stated publicly that it has suspended its early settlement process, but there is no guarantee that it will not sue students again.
If at some point, Early Settlement Letters are reintroduced and you receive one, you may wish to seek the advice of an attorney. The University’s Office of the General Counsel does not represent students, so you would need to seek independent legal representation.
Past letter recipients who did not want to settle with the RIAA were frequently sued. As part of this process, the RIAA would issue a subpoena to Cornell requesting the disclosure of your name and identifying information.
If served with a valid subpoena from the RIAA, the University will comply with the subpoena, providing the requested information.
You are responsible for any violation that occurs using your registered network addresses. This includes any downloading that occurs on a wireless router that you have registered on the University network or activity using a VPN connection to the Cornell network.
Even if you have legally purchased a copyrighted work, it is still a violation of copyright law to distribute it to others without the content owner’s permission. If you are making the works available for downloading (whether knowingly or not), you may receive an infringement notice or be subject to other legal action based on the copyright holder claims that you are allowing other people to download their material.
By default, P2P file-sharing applications enable uploading of files from your computer to others. To stop uploading, you either have to remove the P2P application from your computer, locate and change the options that control uploading in the application, or disconnect the computer from the network. Even after you have disabled uploading on a P2P application, a software update or other resetting mechanism may reset your preferences to resume uploading. You can reduce this risk by monitoring your use of the software, learning about the underlying technology, and familiarizing yourself with the laws that govern your use of these applications. If you want to be certain that you are not distributing copyright files over the Internet and campus network contact ITS Student Computing for assistance in removing the P2P software application.
Portions of this page are based on web documentation produced by Yale University and are used with permission.
