Jacqueline Craig, IST–AVCO
The Congressional committee that oversees copyright law (the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, http://www.house.gov/judiciary/courts.htm) is conducting a series of hearings on copyright piracy; their February 26 hearing focused entirely on "Peer-to-Peer Piracy On University Campuses". These hearings follow the well-publicized fall campaign by the creative content industries to enlist the aid of the higher education community to address the issue of online piracy of copyrighted creative works carried out on university networks.
At issue are two laws:
The DMCA affords online service providers limitations from liability in the event that its users "infringe" another's online copyright. These limitations are granted if specific procedures are followed in response to a complaint of infringement to the registered DMCA agent. The NET Act makes it a federal offense to willfully share copies of copyrighted materials with anyone if the value of the work exceeds $1,000, or if the person hopes to receive files in return. Violation can result in fines and imprisonment; terms are determined by the monetary value of the illegally shared materials.
Prior to the passage of these laws and the current interest created by the entertainment industry's focus on university practices, the Berkeley campus had promulgated campus policy, guidelines, and procedures to address online infringing activities. In particular, Residential Computing established policies (http://www.rescomp.berkeley.edu/about/policy/) and educational tools to inform student residents about file sharing and the related problem of bandwidth abuse. In response to the recent interest voiced by the entertainment industry, Information Resources & Communications (IR&C) at the Office of the President prepared an official statement on Digital Copyright Protection (http://www.ucop.edu/irc/policy/copyright.html), which is prominently posted on the IR&C home page (http://www.ucop.edu/irc/).
The campus does receive DMCA notices from various entertainment entities, such as the RIAA and the MPAA, if they have identified any file sharing of their copyrighted works that use a UC Berkeley IP address. The campus responds by following specific take-down procedures as required by the DMCA. A large number of these notices result from computers having been hacked by external sources and unknowingly providing peer-to-peer file sharing services on the Internet. However, if notices identify intentionally installed file-sharing software, established disciplinary procedures are followed.
[ iNews | Issue Contents | Search BC&C | BC&C Main Menu | IST | UC Berkeley ]
Berkeley Computing & Communications,
Volume 13, Number 2 (Spring 2003)
Copyright 2003, The Regents of the University of California