Copyright Infringement on the Rise

By Danae Stahlnecker

The yearly rate of Digital Millennium Copyright Act Violations is steadily increasing.

"It's a significant problem," said Ron Danielson, vice provost for Information Services.

During the 2009-10 school year, there were 190 violations,  277 for the 2010-11 year,  and as of last week, so far 172 during the 2011-12 year. An additional  factor is the impact on the university's resources.

"Every one of these take-down notices requires… two hours of staff time," said Danielson.

Employees are paid $75 per hour, meaning each take down notice is at least a $150 expense per IT for inspecting the computers and dealing with infringing materials. 

While the expense of these violations is part of the operating budget for IT, it is a misdirection of funds as the time spent addressing this issue could be spent attending to other  problems.

"This expense has got to come from someplace," said Michael Miller, the Student Technical Services manager. 

Some schools have a fining system in place to deal with the costs of the DMCA. Stanford University charges a $500 reconnection fee for every DMCA complaint after the first one. As of now, Santa Clara has no such system. 

The Office of Student Life sees a similar misdirection of resources since time is spent holding conferences with students who received violation notices.

"Our office tries to be a resource to students in other ways, it'd be great if we could spend our time addressing other issues outside of DMCA violations," said Lester Deanes, assistant dean at the Office of Student Life.

The Higher Education Opportunity Act requires the university to have a written plan handling violations of the DMCA, educating students about copyright infringement.

If the university receives a DMCA violation notification, then IT will be contacted and asked to identify the owner of the computer in question. They will disable the computer's access to the campus network, and the owner will have to contact the Network Security Analyst in IT to discuss the DMCA notice. 

During this meeting, the notice will be explained and the owner will have an opportunity to produce documentation of legal authorization to possess the copyrighted works that are allegedly being held illegally.

In a typical copyright violation scenario, the student will be referred to Deanes. 

After a thorough review, it will be decided whether or not judicial actions will be enacted. After this initial review, the student will be referred back to IT, where their computer will be inspected to ensure that all infringing works have been removed. At the end of the inspection, the computer's network access will be restored.

Ethical implications of copyright infringement are a concern for the university.

"It goes against the spirit of our institution," remarked Deanes.

The Santa Clara University Student Handbook states that the publication, posting or distribution through the use of University resources,  or during authorized University activities of material that violates the use of copyrighted materials   may subject students to disciplinary action.

Beyond the issue of ethical behavior, the university must also address the technical aspect of responding to DMCA notices. This becomes a particularly time and finance consuming effort.

According to Miller, students living off-campus should be aware of their activities while using the university network as well. "It's easy to be tricked into whether something is legal or not," said Deanes. 

Miller also noted that there are some programs that will automatically share files once the program is opened, and some programs will open as soon as a computer is booted up. So long as the program is running while the student is using the campus network, the student could be liable for a DMCA notice.

Contact Danae Stahlnecker at dstahlnecker@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4849.