Yes, you can download Casino Royale, Spiderman, The Matrix, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings on the internet just like you can drive 100 mph on the highway. Both are illegal, and both have cops watching for you. Details below.
When you use a file sharing utility like Limewire, Gnutella, Morpheus, KaZaA, or BitTorrent, you don't just receive files. In an "honor among thieves" arrangement you become a provider of files at the same time. The file sharing software registers your participation in a central directory so that other users of the software can also obtain the entertainment files that you have acquired.
Copyright watchdogs from the music, movie and software industries use automated processes with the same software to access the same directories and check for availability of files that they are interested in protecting. When they find that you have one of their files available, they send off a complaint to your Internet Service Provider.
Utah State University is a registered internet service provider in compliance with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act so we are easy to contact. When copyright watchdogs find any of their files on your file-sharing computer in the usu.edu domain, they send us a specific legal notice and we are required to take action.
You made an appropriate use agreement with USU if you got a Housing IP address or a wireless network mobile IP address. That agreement included the following:
| Programs (games), databases, audio files (songs) and video files (movies) created by others are automatically protected by copyright. You should not acquire or distribute these works without complying with the owner's licensing terms (Usually this means PAYING for the files). You may not operate on the campus network any server that provides any files for which you do not have authorization. For more details, see the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This means no Kazaa, Morpheus or other peer-to-peer file sharing. Don't do it! They will catch you. They will complain to USU. We will disable your access. |
Violation of that agreement, as alleged by an official complaint from a copyright watchdog, could result in immediate termination of your internet access and referral of the complaint for University Disciplinary Action.
There are many legal on-line sources of entertainment files which charge modest fees.
You may also find it useful to disable filesharing on your P2P program so that others (including the watchdogs) cannot see and copy your files. Thanks to the University of Chicago for this information resource.
Although file sharing protocols are widely used on the internet to share copyrighted material, the protocols are also useful for the legitimate sharing of original works such as those created by students in the University Reserve Graphics Lab and in other facilities. The file sharing protocol is not illegal, just as the gas pedal in your car is not illegal. But it is possible to do illegal things with both, and both are subject to investigation and legal penalties.
For more infomation and to get answers to your specific questions, contact abuse@usu.edu .
letter from RIAA to University Presidents
University CIO listserver discussions
RIAA letter to commercial ISPs (not just .edu)
Letter to All Students from the Cornell University IT Policy Office
