Piracy and Copyright Infringement

As campuses receive an increasing number of DMCA notices and settlement letters, and as more and different technological solutions of varying worth arrive and new legal threats emerge, IT organizations struggle to understand the law and create the right educational, disciplinary, technological, or market approaches that best correspond to the culture, tradition, and missions of the institution. In this session we will delve into the history of P2P file sharing; explain the basics of the applicable laws, including the different standards and methods used by the RIAA to protect its rights; and tell the stories of two campuses with very different DMCA experiences. We will discuss the different ways that colleges and universities respond to DMCA notices and subpoenas and touch on the new language in the 2008 Higher Education Reauthorization. We will close with an audience discussion of how we got here and where we go next.

In an effort to better understand the technologies available for copyright infringement control, the Common Solutions Group invited leading vendors of detection and suppression technologies to present and discuss the architecture and implementation of their products at an intensive workshop held at Virginia Tech on January 9, 2008. This is their summary report.

The recording industry’s complaints against alleged music downloaders are just the tip of the iceberg in legal threats against online activity. In the five years of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, we have seen thousands of legal threats, with claims including trademark infringement, defamation, and copyright infringement. This seminar will discuss some of the range of complaints, both unwarranted and justified, and describe ChillingEffects.org’s resources for those trying to evaluate legal threats. In some cases, the web’s sunlight can help to melt meritless threats.

This is an unabridged transcript of Don Reisingers interview with the RIAA.

The RIAA has quickly become one of the most disliked organizations in the world. Working ostensibly with the interests of the artists in mind, the organization has single-handedly instituted a policy of lawsuits and education in an attempt to curb the piracy of music.

EDUCAUSE Vice President, Mark Luker, responds to Dan Glickman of the MPAA and his piece “Compiling a Sensible Syllabus for Piracy U,”.

"If you were responsible for a college's network and were faced with infringement notices from the recording and motion picture industries, how would you handle them? That's the question Elliot Kendall, network security architect at Brandeis University, faced. He decided to ask his peers how they handled P2P traffic on campus networks, as well as DMCA takedown notices and prelitigation settlement letters."

A steady stream of press releases from the MPAA and the RIAA about unauthorized peer-to-peer downloading suggests that college students are digital pirates and campus network officials are engaged in benign neglect. Yet ample evidence confirms that unauthorized P2P downloading is primarily a consumer market problem, not especially tied to college students on campus networks. Moreover, the media companies with strong ties to consumer broadband providers are themselves at least indirectly promoting unauthorized P2P activity. This is not new: Media companies have a long history of seeking remedy (and revenue) from Congressional action, rather than pursuing marketplace solutions.

This presentation will focus on how Big Music and Big Hollywood have targeted colleges and universities via press releases and Congressional lobbying initiatives while largely ignoring the much larger amount of unauthorized P2P file sharing taking place on commercial networks.

Illinois State University has embarked on a multifaceted comparative study called the Digital Citizen Project, which investigates what works and what doesn't regarding P2P, media, and copyright. The latest baseline data will be shared and discussed, with its implications for industry and higher education. An update on technical monitoring solutions and legal service alternatives will also be featured.