PROCEDURE PERTAINING TO NOTIFICATIONS OF COPYRIGHT VIOLATION ON THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY NETWORK UNDER THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT
January 2003
Legal developments such as the Verizon decision last week combined with the preponderance of security incidents that include copyright violations have resulted in a new procedure for handling Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices.
The distribution of copyrighted material for which the distributor does not have the permission of the owner is a violation of federal law and university policy. Popular file sharing programs, such as KaZaA or Morpheus or iMesh, commonly share files out from your computer after you have downloaded them. Copyright holders scan for these files as a means of policing their property rights in the music, games or videos. Their scans target places like Cornell because file share programs automatically favor fast distribution, such as occurs on the university network given its large bandwidth capacity.
As a part of its compliance with federal copyright law, Cornell University deploys a procedure to respond to bona fide notices of copyright violation by copyright holders. This procedure operates as follows:
- The Digital Millennium Copyright Agent for the university requests that the Network Operations Center block the Internet Protocol (IP) address alleged by the notice to be in violation of federal law and provide the agent with the identity of the user or party responsible for the computer (responsible party).
- The agent then notifies the user or responsible party of the notice (by sending a copy of the Standard Notice via e-mail) and requests a cease and desist statement by return e-mail.
- Upon receipt of that statement, the agent then requests that the Network Operations Center unblock the IP address.
Because intentional file sharing of material for which the user does not have the copyright holder's permission is a violation of the University Policy 5.1, Responsible Use of Electronic Communications, in those cases the user shall report to the Office of Judicial Administration for disciplinary processing. These procedures help to protect the user against copyright holders going through legal processes to obtain the identity of the user.
In the case where the copyright notice is the result of a computer compromise (electronic activities that cause damage to a computer), or a "hacking," and not the intentional activity of file sharing on the part of the computer’s user, the agent shall instruct the user to fix the computer or to make an appointment with the HelpDesk (helpdesk@cornell.edu) to have it fixed. The agent will request the block be lifted upon receipt of information that the machine has been repaired.
Users of file share programs should be aware of the liability that they create for themselves by deployment of these programs over Cornell University’s network. Specifically they are advised to turn off the outbound functions of these file share programs; information on how to do so may be found at: http://security.uchicago.edu/guidelines/peer-to-peer/. Please write IT-policies@cornell.edu with any questions regarding the law or policy of copyright and file sharing on the Cornell campus. Programming on information technology ethics education may also be found at: http://ucpl.cornell.edu.
Tracy Mitrano
Policy Advisor for the Office of Information Technologies
Copyright Agent for Cornell University
Links updated May 2008