Issue date: 3/3/09 Section: News

Since May 2008, Information Technology Services has received more than 1,800 complaints from the Motion Picture Association of America about student or faculty copyright infringement. (Photo illustration by Erin Matheny/The Daily Eastern News)

More than 1,800 students or faculty members have received complaints of possible copyright infringement since May 2008, and a few departments have been strained with managing the influx of complaints.

Adam Dodge, the security officer for Information Technology Services, said ITS has two full-time employees verifying and monitoring complaints. He said the number of complaints has had a noticeable effect on ITS' productivity.

"Managing the workload of these complaints has been difficult," Dodge said.

In order to deal with the influx of complaints, ITS is working to streamline the verification process Dodge said.

He said he has developed a few computer programs that allow his security group to automate some of the steps in the verification and identification process.

"However, with each notice requiring between three to five minutes to verify, identify and document, this large influx in the number of complaints does require a lot of worker time," Dodge said.

He said he could not quantify how many hours it takes his staff to verify complaints each day, because the amount fluctuates each day. On some days, ITS will receive seven complaints. On other days, ITS will receive 80 complaints, Dodge said.

Dodge, who has been at Eastern since June 2007, said the university did not receive any copyright infringements prior to May 2008. He said he does not know the reason for the increase in complaints.

The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America send out notices to universities asking the university to take action against students who might be illegally downloading or distributing audio and video files, said Chat Chatterji, assistant vice president for ITS.

"The copyright holders tend to be a bit more concerned with 'distribution' rather than 'downloading' as such, but nonetheless, both activities are illegal and both are subject of complaints by the MPAA and RIAA," Chatterji said.

Dodge said, after receiving the complaints from the General Counsel Office, ITS relies on its network logs to verify a complaint. From there, Dodge works to retrieve the pertinent data associated with copyright infringement, such as IP address, protocol used and the date of alleged infringement.

"This information goes to a spreadsheet that my group uses to keep track of each complaint that comes through," he said.

ITS then reviews its connection logs in hopes to see where the alleged activity happened, Dodge said.

In order to do this efficiently, ITS limits its search to the IP address in question, the protocol used and the general time when the alleged activity happened.

He said, once ITS verifies a connection took place, it logs the connection in a case folder.

ITS then reviews Clean Access log-ins for students and inventory log-ins for faculty members. The log files are also stored in a case file, Dodge said.

ITS then notifies either the Office of Student Standards for students or the General Counsel for faculty about the verified complaint.

The Office of Student Standards sends a letter to the student notifying him or her of a copyright violation, but no punitive action takes place.

Repeat violations, however, are subject to punitive action.

"If there is a pattern of behavior … we take a different type of action," said Heather Webb, director of student standards.

She said, when repeat violations happen, she meets with the student informing him that the office already sent a warning letter about possible copyright infringement.

She said she tells the student that further activity puts them at risk for legal action from the copyright holder.

"At that time, I discuss with them additional sanctioning and let them know that their personal network service will be restored when their sanctioning has been completed," Webb said.

She said if a student continues to infringe on copyright material, he or she is subject to additional action, stated in the Student Code of Conduct.

Webb declined to explain what specific sanction the student receives.

She said her office has sent more than 500 letters warning of possible copyright infringements since Thursday.

She said her office has redirected 14 students for repeat violations.

"We continue to receive reports about these activities each week," Webb said.

Students sharing their Clean Access log-in information creates another issue with MPAA and RIAA tracking for possible copyright infringement.

"The most important step is not to share your username and password," Dodge said.

He said if a student has done this, he should visit www.ezreset.eiu.edu to change his password.

Students need to be careful when using Clean Access to sign-in on another student's computer.

Dodge said if a student is using that computer for illegal peer-to-peer file sharing, the student who signed in to the computer without logging out is liable for copyright infringement.

"Remember to log out of Clean Access," he said.

Dodge said, because ITS is concerned about protecting students and faculty members, ITS does everything possible to ensure the initial complaint is valid.

Whenever there is a question, Dodge said ITS simply lists they are not able to verify the complaint.

He said ITS does not report anything back to the organization that sent the complaint.

"Once the notice is received on campus, everything remains internal to the university," Dodge said.

Stephen Di Benedetto can be reached at 581-7942 or at sdibenedetto@eiu.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools

The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.

Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.

If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.