Although the Recording Industry Association of America is no longer keeping track of students violating copyright infringement laws, the University’s Enterprise Information Technology Systems still is.

Students illegally sharing files over a University Internet connection may find themselves in trouble with the University Judiciary. Photo by: Emily Karol

In August 2008, the RIAA decided to end all new lawsuits against University students, yet student information and IP addresses are still collected by EITS.

“Any time we’re aware of illegal use of University hardware, it is incumbent on us to act,” said Tom Jackson, vice president of public affairs. “We don’t want University facilities used to break the law.”

The University does not monitor student’s Web use. However, when students use peer-to-peer software, every time new material appears in a shareable folder, an “advertisement” is sent to the software’s network. Copyright owners monitor these networks and advertisements, searching for copyright violations.

“The copyright owners will send a notice to the Internet Service Provider, which in your case is the University of Georgia, and state there has been a violation of the copyright act,” the Office of Judicial Programs’ Web site states. “They will ask the ISP to stop the violation.”
EITS then matches the IP address to the MyID owner. They then inform the student and the Office of Judicial Programs about the violation and ask the student to stop the distribution of the material.

Brian Rivers, director of security, network operations and infrastructure, told The Red & Black EITS collects and monitors the University Internet connections to check for abuse ­to the server, such as malware and hackers, not to monitor students.

“The University respects the privacy of our students, and it has never been the policy of the University to turn in names of students to the RIAA or copyright holders. However, in the case that a lawsuit is filed and information is subpoenaed from the University, the University is legally bound to supply this information to the courts,” Rivers said.

The commitment to student privacy has recently been questioned. On Feb. 1, Dorin Dehelean, a former Internet technology security analyst at EITS, was arrested after a student told police he attempted to extort her for copyright infringement. Dehelean had access to student names and IP addresses, and University police said last week they believe more students may be victims of Dehelean’s scam.

Rivers said although the process of monitoring copyright infringement is one of the most highly scrutinized IT processes, EITS is taking extra steps to protect student records.

“We are implementing job rotation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act process and working to ensure students understand that no UGA employee should ever ask them for money in connection with the DMCA process,” Rivers said.

Since the RIAA quit pursuing suits, students are no longer in danger of losing any money to the association because of copyright infringement. The Office of Judicial Programs can still punish students who violate copyrights.

“The University is legally required to take steps to remove the infringing material from our network when we receive the notices, and that’s why we pass these on to the users,” Rivers said.

According to the Office of Judicial Programs’ Web site, student punishment can vary from case to case. First time violators usually get a warning. Second time violators could lose their campus computer privileges.

The University can take away a student’s computing privileges because of the DMCA, which states service providers, such as the University, are legally required to prosecute the offending party.

Though copyright infringement is a serious issue, Jackson said the University has no plans to block any Web sites.

“We don’t believe in censorship; we believe in self-regulation,” Jackson said. “We don’t censor the Internet. That’s something they do in China.”