Music and Video File Sharing Policy on Millikin University’s Network
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Millikin University’s Responsibility

Since the fall of Napster, the peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing service so heavily targeted by and eventually dissolved by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for harboring copyright infringement, numerous similar technologies have risen to take its place. Most of the Napster “clones,” such as KaZaA, Morpheus, Gnutella, and iMesh, have a familiar architecture that is highly decentralized and thus becomes nearly impossible to regulate. Even more difficult are the RIAA’s efforts to prevent the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials. Now, home-grown, student-run file sharing networks have begun to crop up on college campuses around the world that are even more difficult to control because they often reside behind the protection of a campus firewall. The RIAA has therefore begun to target students for copyright infringement violations at several universities and have successfully exposed student-run file sharing networks. It is imperative that Millikin University examine its own stance on copyright infringement policies.

The RIAA’s concerns are valid and their efforts to maintain control of their intellectual property are reasonable within the confines of the law. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 (Summary available at: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf), Millikin University is obligated to assist the RIAA in these efforts.

Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act discusses the limitation of liability of online service providers should one of their end users violate a portion of the Copyright Act. These liability limitations remove the burden of guilt from the service provider, Millikin University, and place it on the offenders. Millikin falls under the DMCA’s strict definition of “service provider” by providing a means of digital online communication to users and is eligible for liability limitations after meeting two conditions:

• Adopting and reasonably implementing a policy of terminating in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of subscribers who are repeat infringers.
  
• Accommodating and not interfering with “standard technical measures,” which are defined as measures that copyright owners use to identify or protect copyrighted works that are developed with the broad consensus of copyright owners and do not impose substantial burdens on service providers.

This serves as an announcement of Millikin’s commitment to cooperate with the RIAA and/or its constituents and abide by the conditions set forth by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to ensure its liability limitation. If Millikin University network administration is notified by RIAA and/or its constituents that a user of Millikin’s network is found to repeatedly infringe upon copyright laws or provides a means of transmitting copyrighted works among a wide user base; Millikin University has the obligation to terminate that user’s network access until the administration is assured the infringements have ceased.