Students who are found infringing copyright online must now study the law

Cornell students who engage in Internet copyright infringement by sharing music and video will no longer find themselves called to appear before the university Judicial Administrator (JA). Instead they will be required to take -- and pass -- an online course in copyright law.

"This is designed to shift the emphasis from discipline to education," explained Tracy Mitrano, director of information technology policy at Cornell.

What triggers the action is a notice sent by a content owner to the university in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) alleging infringement of their intellectual property. The university receives about 50 such notices a month, Mitrano said, noting that some of them are faulty, and that the number of notices depends more on the decisions of content owners than on the amount of allegedly infringing activity on the part of students. Due process is still available, she pointed out: The university's first action is to block the student's Internet access, and a student may "self-release" from the Internet block (since that action is not designed as discipline but only to call the student's attention to the matter) and can choose to go before the JA and contest the charge. Many students, Mitrano added, are unaware that most file-sharing programs automatically upload files at the same time they download.

"We are not monitoring traffic; we do not generate these notices," Mitrano said. "The reason we act on these notices is that we have knowledge of an alleged violation of university policy." (The policy involved is University Policy 5.1, "Responsible Use of Electronic Communications.")

Mitrano's office created the core curriculum for the course and engaged eCornell, the university's distance-learning subsidiary, to process the material into an online course. Students who take the course will pay a fee of $35 to eCornell to cover server costs. (The fine typically imposed by the JA for copyright violation has been $35.) Typically, Mitrano said, it should take about 45 minutes to complete the course. The passing grade is a "gentleman's C," 70.

The course covers the history and politics of copyright law, social tensions that have arisen between law and social norms in the Internet age, the functionality of file-sharing technologies and applicable university policy. "It is a complex perspective on the meaning of copyright on the Internet and in American -- if not global -- society, not a simple 'Thou shalt not,'" Mitrano said.

The core curriculum and a demo of the course can be seen on the IT Policy Office Web site at http://www.cit.cornell.edu/policy/.

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