MESSAGE TO ALL STUDENTS REGARDING THE USE OF FILE OR INTERNET SHARE SYSTEMS TO EXCHANGE COPYRIGHT MATERIAL
August 28, 2006
Classes have just begun and already Cornell University has received notices from owners of copyright material alleging infringement. These notices are called "DMCA Notices," which stands for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides the legal procedure whereby copyright holders contact Internet Service Providers, such as Cornell University, regarding alleged violations of their intellectual property rights.
When you received a NetID and before you were allowed full access to the Cornell network, you took a short tutorial regarding university network policy. Information about the law regarding infringement of copyright was included, and the short "test" that you took was designed to provide each new student with awareness of the law and potential consequences for violation of university policy.
This message reminds you that the distribution of copyright material you do not own or have the copyright owner's permission to use is a potential violation of both criminal and civil federal law. Copyright material can include movies, television shows, music, games or software. File or Internet share systems, such as Bear Share or Bit Torrent, "distribute" such material automatically when outbound functions are on and your computer is hooked up to the Internet. Therefore, even if you have legally purchased a copy of material, for example on CD or DVD, loaded it on your computer and run one of these systems, you may be in violation of law for "distributing" it out to the Internet.
Copyright holders, such as the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Business Software Alliance, vigorously enforce their property rights. Not every DMCA notice results in a lawsuit; in fact a copyright holder is not even required to provide notice of an alleged violation through a DMCA notice to initiate a case. Nonetheless, it is important for you to know that if a copyright holder initiates a case and serves Cornell University with a legitimate legal subpoena requesting the identity of an individual using an Internet Protocol address alleged to be involved in an infringement, the University will honor that request.
Finally, Cornell University does not sponsor at this time a legal media program. Internet services -- as distinct from file share programs -- such as iTunes or Napster are available directly and provide legal material. (For example, see: http://www.campusdownloading.com/legal.htm.) Do not be confused by claims that any particular file or Internet share program is "legal," such as DC++ or MyTunes. Whether the programs themselves are legal would, under a recent Supreme Court decision, be a matter for a court to decide. What is important for you to know is that the material being shared on such systems very well might not be "legal" and therefore you might be in violation of the law for sharing the copyright protected material exchanged by that system.
If you have any questions regarding this information, please feel free to contact me. I would be glad to talk with you about digital copyright.
Tracy Mitrano
DMCA Registered Agent
Cornell University
http://www.cit.cornell.edu/oit/PolicyOffice.html