Illegal sharing of copyrighted music and video content has become a major issue in higher education. Regardless of whether you are ignorant of the law, didn't realize you were sharing, or believe you should be able to do it, open sharing of copyrighted materials without permission is illegal and you may be held personally accountable under the law for illegal uses of your computer(s) or those under your stewardship. This applies to illegal use of peer-to-peer services such as BitTorrent, Limewire or eDonkey as well as good ol' FTP.

What does this mean for us? The University of Hawaii must address any allegations of copyright infringement on our campuses. Upon receipt of a copyright violation notice, UH immediately blocks the allegedly infringing computer from accessing the UH network investigate the complaint. ITS receives the notifications, and we work with IT support staff throughout the system to fulfill our obligations under the law. If a violation is found, the computer is "cleaned" and we require counseling of the individual involved. Successive violations, which are extremely rare, have more serious consequences.

We are also stepping up our educational program to help members of our community understand that open sharing of copyrighted content without permission is against the law and carries severe legal consequences for the individuals involved. That's part of our responsibility in educating students in the digital age.

Nonetheless, the media industry is mounting an increasingly aggressive campaign against filesharing in general and higher education in particular. They claim that colleges and universities aren't doing enough to educate and prevent illegal peer-to-peer filesharing on campuses. Their campaign has an active legal component and involves active lobbying component at the federal level.

Their legal campaign includes an escalating set of actions ranging from notices of alleged infringement to pre-litigation notices, subpoenas and lawsuits against individuals. Copyright infringers may be liable for up to $150,000 per item infringed upon, plus attorney fees and possible criminal penalties. A recent case found a Minnesota woman liable for $222,000 in damages for sharing 24 copyrighted songs, or $9,250 per song. And at least one member of the UH community has already been prosecuted for a criminal offense associated with illegal sharing of software.

The media industry has also been taking their battle to Congress. The House of Representatives has before it a bill that could make colleges and universities ineligible for federal financial aid if we do not have plans for purchasing legal media content to our students and acquiring technical solutions to block illegal filesharing on campus. Given the media industry's influence in Washington, DC and the lack of specificity of the legislation that passed out of committee, there's no guarantee that they wouldn't be able to wield this as a powerful weapon against colleges and universities that don't meet their expectations.

We are working with our colleagues in higher education to try to help public policy-makers understand that higher education should not be singled out by the media industry for this aggressive campaign, since their own data makes it clear that only a small portion of copyright violations take place on campuses. We also need to help policy-makers understand that the measures proposed by the industry for higher education are expensive, ineffective, damaging to our students and destructive to our mission. Ultimately, the media industry needs to develop new business models rather than continue to resist the digital age in which we all live today.

Aloha, David
Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, ITS