University responds to complaints of illegal downloads

The University of Richmond has responded to 20 complaints by copyright owners about unauthorized use of intellectual property on campus this year.

The university responded to seven complaints during the 2007-2008 year, and 37 complaints during the 2008-2009 year, university librarian Jim Rettig said. Of the 20 complaints this year, 10 students were identified as having violated copyright law.

All complaints alleging the illegal use of intellectual property - including movies, music, photographs or literary works - are sent to Rettig, who is also Richmond's designated Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) agent.

All complaints contain the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer on which the violation was alleged to have taken place, the date and time of the alleged violation and title of the piece of intellectual property, all of which Rettig sends to Information Services, which can verify the information.

Because the University of Richmond is the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for those who access the Internet on campus, a log is kept of all information accessed through the Richmond network, user services manager Scott Tilghman said. The log is only accessed to verify that a copyright violation has taken place once a complaint from a copyright owner outside of the university is received, he said.

If the complaint is found to be true, Rettig then sends a letter to the student accused of violating Information Services policy, to which all students pledged their compliance when they registered their computers on the Richmond network, he said. Those who access the Internet through the university must not copy or reproduce any licensed software or intellectual property found on university computing equipment unless they are granted permission to do so, according to the Information Services Web site.

The student will then meet with a representative from the Help Desk, who will remove any illegal files from the computer, Rettig said. Any file-sharing software that is on the computer, such as Limewire and BitTorrent, is also erased, Tilghman said, because even if a student doesn't access intellectual property illegally on campus, such software can still violate copyright law without the student's knowledge.

The student will then learn about copyright law from Rettig and receive sanctions from the dean of his or her respective college.

After a first offense, the student is warned that a second violation of Information Services policy will lead to restricted access to the Richmond network. Although the student would still have access to public computers, he or she would not be permitted wireless access or local area network (LAN) access for one semester, said Patrick Benner, Richmond College associate dean for residence life.

Benner said a third offense would lead to a loss of network privileges altogether, but he had seen only three students commit second offenses during his time at Richmond. Students who violated network policy were originally expected to fulfill community service, but Richmond officials have moved away from that policy toward the current policy, he said. Westhampton College maintains a similar policy for its students, said Charm Bullard, associate dean for residence life.

Because the university responds promptly to all allegations of unauthorized intellectual property usage, Rettig said, the copyright provider rarely follows up with the university because it knows it is dealing with the matter internally. The university could lose its ISP status if it didn't respond to complaints in a timely manner, Rettig said.

Both Rettig and Tilghman want students to understand the ramifications of using intellectual property illegally.

"If it's free, it's probably illegal," Tilghman said.

Tilghman encouraged students to ask the help desk for assistance if they were unsure whether a product was illegal. Rettig said he always asked students he met with to explain to their friends the details of copyright infringement in order to prevent more students from violating the law.

Peer-to-peer sharing programs were originally designed for a good purpose - to compile programs that were too large to be shared among people through other means, Tilghman said. The idea was a good concept, but a poor application, he said.

The DMCA became law in 1998 as information became easier to transmit digitally and copyright law became more difficult to enforce. As long as the university complies with the DMCA by removing or blocking access to copyrighted material that is used without permission, the act guarantees protection to the institution as a whole even if its network users violate the law, according to the Information Services Web site.

A copyright provider cannot derive the name of a person from a complaint, Rettig said. Even after discovering the identity of the person responsible, the university will not turn over his or her name to a copyright owner unless university officials are given a subpoena, at which point they would act in accordance with the recommendations of University counsel. Rettig said the university did not want to expose students, but students had to ultimately take responsibility for their own actions.

Contact staff writer Jimmy Young at jimmy.young@richmond.edu