Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America released a list of the 25 universities that received the most copyright complaints this school year. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln was ranked third behind Ohio University and Purdue University.
Illegal use of copyrighted material is a problem that officials at UNL are finding difficult to solve because of the university’s policies toward illegal downloading and its network.
| Piracy policies from Information Services:
n Strike one: Student will receive an e-mail notification with a copy of the complaint for illegal downloading. The incident will be entered into a database, and if contact with the student is not established, the network connection may be disabled. n Strike two: If the student is in a residence hall, the student will be required to state in writing within seven days of notification that the illegal behavior will be stopped. If it is not, network access will be disabled until the statement is turned in. n Strike three: Network access is indefinitely disabled, and a notice is sent to the Office of Student Affairs. Student may also be subject to additional disciplinary action. Source: www.unl.edu |
UNL has a reactive policy toward copyright infringement, according to Kent Hendrickson, the associate vice chancellor for information services. UNL only investigates copyright infringement at the request of the copyright holders.
“We get the information from the organizations that are concerned about what they call illegal downloading,” Hendrickson said.
He said the RIAA brings copyright complaints to UNL officials when they have a problem with a student on campus. The RIAA provides the IP address, which identifies a computer on a network, then officials at UNL trace that address to find the offending student.
When it comes to copyright complaints, UNL has a three-strikes policy, which can be viewed on the information services page of the UNL Web site. A third strike results in students’ names being turned over to judicial affairs, but Hendrickson said no student has received three strikes.
As far as legal repercussions go, Hendrickson said when the RIAA comes knocking, it’s not the university officials are after. Any legal recourse goes to the student, which is a point UNL is trying to make.
Education is the main tool information services uses to pre-empt piracy, he said.
“The main emphasis is that this activity is illegal,” Hendrickson said. “And if the music, film and software agencies decide to take legal action against somebody, it will be against the student, not the university.”
Zachary Reimer, a UNL network security analyst, said it is difficult to fight piracy on the network level because lots of copyright materials are transferred via peer-to-peer file sharing, which essentially means file transfers occur completely within UNL’s network.
However, there is also legitimate peer-to-peer file sharing, and Reimer said it is difficult to differentiate between the good and the bad file transfers. So shutting down peer-to-peer networking is a double-edged sword.
“As a research university, should we be preventing people from using these tools?” Reimer asked. “Do we want to have a blanket ban on that kind of stuff?”
Hendrickson’s answer is “no.”
He said the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Oklahoma both block peer-to-peer file transfers. As a result, both schools have significantly fewer copyright complaints than UNL.
But Hendrickson said he doesn’t want to take UNL in that direction.
“Maybe it’s something I should do,” Hendrickson said. “But my assumption has been that it is certainly not something students would welcome. I’m sure there are a lot of transfers that go on that are legitimate, so you’re standing in the way of those, too.”
