File Sharing and Copyright
Copyright law
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, the sharing of copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder is illegal. The DMCA requires that Internet Service Providers such as WWU take steps to expeditiously remove or disable access to any copyrighted material being shared illegally from within its network.
WWU Responsible Computing policy states: “All users of the computing systems are to respect the rights of other computing users, respect the integrity of the physical facilities and controls, and respect all pertinent copyright, license, and contractual agreements.”
File sharing on campus
File sharing programs aggressively use large quantities of available bandwidth, which can cause slow downs for other students who use the network. To maintain a usable network for all, as well as to prevent users from sharing copyrighted files with others, file sharing programs receive the lowest priority on our network (see traffic prioritization). Web surfing, email, instant messaging, and online gaming get first dibs at the network bandwidth, which causes file sharing programs to run extremely slow.
Copyright violations on campus
ResTek does not monitor the content of your online activities. However, there are companies and organizations (like the RIAA) that locate people who are downloading or distributing copyrighted materials.
Copyright violation is a serious crime, and you should research copyright law if you want to know the possible legal consequences. ResTek’s policy upon notification of a copyright infringement is:
- Your Internet connection is disabled.
- You will be notified via MyWestern email of the violation.
- The incident is entered into the housing conduct system.
- You will meet with your Resident Director to discuss the issue and appropriate sanctions.
File sharing alternatives
Check out these great sites for legal music, movies, and more!
Free
- Cnet’s Download.com. The premier source for free music. Over 111,000 free mp3’s.
- Freeplay Music
- Garageband, “Discovering the best independent music.” Offers lots of free downloads.
- Internet.org Live Music Archive. Many artists allow their live shows to be freely downloaded and shared. The Grateful Dead are famous for it.
- Internet.org Moving Image Archive. This library contains thousands of digital movies which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to videos of every genre uploaded by Archive users.
- Internet.org Text Archive. Provides links to thousands of classic books and other texts. A host of the famous Project Gutenberg, one of the most ambitious projects to store books which are no longer covered by copyright.
- MTV.com. Free music downloads.
- Shoutcast, a directory of free Internet radio stations
Pay-per-download
- Amazon MP3. Pay per track or album.
- Amazon Unbox. Rent or buy thousands of movies and TV shows.
- iTunes, Apple’s pay-per-download music service.
- Rhapsody. Rhapsody is a digital music service that lets you listen to whatever you want, whenever you want it. With online music stores, you pay for every track or album, but Rhapsody lets you listen to everything we’ve got for one low monthly price.
- WalMart Music. Pay per track or album.