Music & Video File Sharing

Purpose: This policy defines ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ University’s responsibility in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Policy: This serves as ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ University’s commitment to cooperate with the RIAA and/or its constituents and abide by the conditions set forth by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to ensure its liability limitation.

Procedure: ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, upon notification by the RIAA and/or its constituents, is obligated to terminate network access for anyone on the campus network that is found to repeatedly infringe on national copyright laws, or be held liable for damages. This serves as an announcement of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ’s commitment to cooperate with the RIAA and/or its constituents and abide by the conditions set forth by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to ensure its liability limitation. If ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ University network administration is notified by RIAA and/or its constituents that a user of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ’s network is found to repeatedly infringe upon copyright laws or provides a means of transmitting copyrighted works among a wide user base, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ University has the obligation to terminate that user’s network access until the administration is assured the infringements have ceased as stated below in Title II of the DMCA of 1998.

Applies to: All members of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ University community

Definitions: RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998

Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act discusses the limitation of liability of online service providers should one of their end users violate a portion of the Copyright Act. These liability limitations remove the burden of guilt from the service provider, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ University, and place it on the offenders. ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ falls under the DMCA’s strict definition of β€œservice provider” by providing a means of digital online communication to users and is eligible for liability limitations after meeting two conditions:

Adopting and reasonably implementing a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers.

Accommodating and not interfering with β€œstandard technical measures,” which are defined as measures that copyright owners use to identify or protect copyrighted works that are developed with the broad consensus of copyright owners and do not impose substantial burdens on service providers.