Technology Policies At Yale
The following is a sample DMCA takedown notification sent to Yale University and subsequently forwarded to the student and his/her respective dean and master.
DMCA Copyright Agent
Information Security Office
25 Science Park
Fax: 203.436.5342
April 19, 2010
Dear XXXXXX (NetID XXXXX, EHA XXXXXXXXXXXX):
Yale University has received a complaint from Warner Bros. regarding the distribution and/or availability of a title they believe to be their intellectual property being distributed on the Yale network (and the Internet). The complaint reports that the computer with IP address XXX.XX.XXX.XXXX (Internet Protocol network address) was and/or is unlawfully making available digitized copies of copyrighted materials. Our records show that this roaming IP address is presently registered to your NetID, or was used by your NetID at the time noted in the complaint. You therefore may be in violation of both Federal copyright law and the University’s Information Technology Appropriate Use Policy (ITAUP), section 1607.1.C.6, “Use in violation of law”” (read more on takedowns).
“Fair use” amongst most college students mostly invokes conversation about its applications to music and videos. However, interesting enough, “fair use” at the university level may have its biggest effects and applications not to the students but to the professors.
Perusing around the web, trying to in investigate Yale’s policies regarding fair use, all i was ably to find were policies which explained fair use and how it applies in the classroom. Yale’s main concern is not about informing the students, but more about the professors. The policies were outlined according to the “Agreement on Guidelines for Classroom Copying in Not-for-Profit Educational Institutions”, which was an unofficial guide for educational istitutions that outlined the minimum standards of fair use. Although the guidelines are not backed by law, they are understood to be reasonable assumptions of the standards of fair use.
The most intersting thing about these guidelines was thier oddly specific criteria. It outlines that for classroom distributed materials a copying is allowed if it accords to the following guidelines …. (read more on fair use).
In general, the University (InfoSec) does not actively monitor network use for content, nor do they review network flow content searching for peer-to-peer traffic. Copyright infringement is learned of solely through complaints from the copyright holders themselves, all of which are found through processes outside the University. To learn more about why this is the case and how the DMCA falls into play, check out theBitTorrent section of this blog.
To understand the circumstances in which your privacy may be compromised due to security concerns, it is important to first briefly mention what constitutes a violation of Yale’s user policies (read more on privacy).
——————————-
Student Perceptions of Copyright
In order to most effectively direct instructional information towards the student body, I surveyed and interviewed a variety of students on their attitudes about copyright and the ethics of illegally copying copyrighted materials.
Plagiarism vs. Illegal Downloading
(see more survey results and interviews).
————————————–
These resources were created as a project for the course CPSC 184: Intellectual Property in the Digital Age, taught by Professor Elizabeth Stark.
Group members:
Paul Ramirez