Copyright Information and Compliance Policies

Laws:
Copyright Law : Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Rensselaer Policies:
Rensselaer Electronic Citizenship
Library Class Reserves
Intellectual Property Fact Sheet
Library Photocopying Obtaining Permissions

Tutorials:
IUPUI TEACH Act summary
PSU Copyright Tutorial
RPInfo Copyright & the WWW
U. Maryland "CopyFair"
U. Texas Copyright Course for Faculty
U. Texas Crash Course in Copyright for Students

Additional links:
Copyright Clearance Center
EDUCAUSE Initiatives
musicunited.org info
Recording Industry Association of America
Templeton's 10 Myths of Copyright
U.S. Copyright Office

The Recording Industry Association of America recently filed lawsuits against University students for direct and contributory copyright infringement for possessing and sharing files containing digital copies of commercial music recordings. This has raised questions on campus regarding Rensselaer’s policy on the use of copyright-protected materials by students, faculty and staff and also on our policy concerning search engines alleged to facilitate the sharing of copyright-protected materials.

---

Rensselaer’s policy is to uphold the law. Copyright Law (Title 17 United States Code) gives the owner of a work (author, musician, artist, photographer, or the publisher to whom the author has sold the work) control over its reproduction, distribution, adaptation, public performance, and public display. All of these require the permission of the copyright holder, unless all the criteria for exception (i.e. fair use) are met.

The criteria for "fair use" are:

• the use is for educational purposes or societal benefits
• the nature or character of the work
• a small portion of the work is involved, and
• there is little or no impact on the market value of the work.

There are also works in the public domain which are not protected by copyright because they have reached the time of maturity set by copyright coverage or because they are publications issued by the federal government.

To copy, store, or distribute copyright-protected materials without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal, unless permitted under "fair use." It is, therefore, also a violation of the Rensselaer Policy on Electronic Citizenship to use the Rensselaer computer network or university computers to do these things.

Section 4.1.2 of the Policy states:

You are responsible for recognizing (attributing) and acquiring appropriate permission to use the intellectual property of others and for not violating copyrights.

You are prohibited from using, accessing, copying, printing, and storing copyrighted computer programs and other material, in violation of copyright. No software may be installed, copied, accessed, printed, transmitted or used on Rensselaer's computer systems and networks except as permitted by the owner of the software. Software subject to licensing must be properly licensed and all license provisions (installation, use, copying, number of simultaneous users, term of license, etc.) must be strictly adhered to.

Although music files and movies are not specifically mentioned, they are certainly among the copyright-protected materials covered by law and by Rensselaer’s policy. Under the law, (specifically, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA) Rensselaer is required to take action to remove network access for materials known to be in violation of copyright.

While Rensselaer as an institution expects its community to act within the law, DotCIO does not monitor the content of user’s files or file transfers.

When Rensselaer receives a legitimate complaint from a copyright owner or the owner’s agent addressed to Rensselaer’s registered DMCA agent or other official representative, we take steps to contact the owner of the offending computer and make sure that the protected material is removed. Refusal to cooperate with such a request will result in a report being sent to the Dean of Students or other appropriate authority. We inform students of the campus policy when they attend Student Orientation and again when they attend laptop distribution in the fall. The Policy on Electronic Citizenship is summarized in the Rensselaer Student Handbook and in training for new staff.

The Policy on Electronic Citizenship limits the use of search engines on the campus network to those that allow users to accept or refuse the search. Operators of search engines should not assume that any computer connected to the network is fair game to probe for unprotected files. When we receive complaints from users who detect that someone is using a search engine in this way, DotCIO will block network access to the engine until it is in compliance. The law governing the use of search engines on networking is evolving. However, people may not be aware that files on their own computers are being shared by these search engines or other “peer-to-peer” programs commonly used such as Kazaa, Morpheus, and iMesh. They are nonetheless, responsible for obeying the law and could be held liable for infringing materials that they are sharing unintentionally.