P2P (Peer to Peer) IT Guidelines

Facts

  1. UVU is legally obligated to respond to copyright, piracy and Digital Millennium Copyright Act violation notices to make a good faith effort to remove all violations from the UVU network.
  2. Illegal P2P downloading of copyrighted materials is a violation of State and Federal Laws and you may be prosecuted. UVU has an obligation to cooperate with law enforcement agencies on such violations.
  3. P2P clients are inherently not secure and give hackers access to the computer on which they are installed.
  4. UEN (Utah Education Network) policy prohibits illegal activities and excess use of bandwidth on the UEN network of which UVU is a part.
  5. UVU policy (Appropriate Use of Computing Facilities A-10.1) includes the following:
    1. From I. Rights and Responsibilities: Use of the UVU computer system must be legal, ethical, and consistent with the College's mission.
    2. From I.a.5.: Individual users must obey federal, state, and local laws which govern computer and telecommunication use.
    3. From I.a.4: Individual users must accept that instructional, administrative, and research uses of system resources take priority over all other uses.
    4. From I.a.8: Individual users must protect the privacy of self and others.
    5. From I.B: System Administrators must:
      1. Perform periodic security checks to ensure that computing resources by the College are as secure as the College can make them.
      2. Enforce violations of this policy in cooperation with appropriate authorities.
      3. Disclose E-mail messages, files, backups, and any other pertinent records to authorized law enforcement officials or other authorized third parties.
    6. From II.B: Users must not share passwords and/or accounts.
    7. From II.D.Users must not use destructive or invasive software.
    8. From II.E. Users must not violate licensing agreements, patent, copyright and/or trademark laws or UVU Purchasing regulations as governed by UVU Policy B-1.3.
    9. From II.G. Users must not consume inordinate amounts of system resources.
    10. From II.L. Users must not use the College computing facilities for disruptive or illegal activities.
    11. From V.A. All computing resources owned and managed by UVU are as secure as the College can make them.
    12. Penalties are spelled out in III.A – E and include loss of access & privileges, disabled accounts, and possible prosecution by law enforcement personnel.

Peer-to-Peer Violation of UVU Policy

The use of programs such as KAZAA, Morpheus, Gnutella, LimeWire, Bear Share, Emule and iMesh that are used to download music, movies, and games are not appropriate use of the UVU and UEN network. If you are using one of these programs, STOP immediately! These programs pose a significant security RISK TO YOU since you are allowing anyone to access your hard drive and computer resources to use it for possible illegal purposes. File sharing also creates large amounts of network traffic causing the college and statewide networks to slow down. This alone is unacceptable. Additionally, almost all files that are downloaded are copyrighted materials that are illegal to share and download. You can be prosecuted for doing such.

Any computer found using these or similar programs will be disconnected from the UVU network and allowed to reconnect only after offending programs have been deleted and the machine verified that hacking software has not been installed.

Leroy Brown, our Information Security Officer, will work with personnel across campus to resolve these and other network security issues.

Ray Walker
Assistant Vice President of Information Technology/CIO
Utah Valley University
800 West University Parkway
Orem, Utah 84058
801‑863‑8200
walkerra@uvu.edu

In order to be reconnected to the UVU network, please sign on the line below and contact the IT Service Desk at x8888. They will help you clean your computer and verify that it is ready to reconnect to the network. Please send the signed form to Ray Walker at Mail Stop 130 or to the Service Desk in BA 007.

Be advised that a second violation will not only result in removal from the network but requires a personal meeting with you, your supervisor and the UVU IT department. Any appeals to this policy should be directed first to ATSC and then to President’s Council or, for students, through the appeal process outlined for them.

I have read and understand the above information and will not violate the policy again.

_________________________________      ____________________________________
Printed Name                                                          Signature

____________________________
Date

Policy references:

Appropriate Use of Computing Facilities 441-10.1

Peer-to-Peer violates UVU policy 441-10.1.I, 441-10.1.I.a.4, 441-10.1.I.a.5, 441-10.1.I.a.8, 441-10.1.II.B, 441-10.1.II.D, 441-10.1.II.E, 441-10.1.II.G, 441-10.1.II.L

Peer-to-Peer requires UVU to take action based on policy 441-10.1.I.B.1, 441-10.1.I.B.5, 441-10.1.I.B.6, 441-10.1.V.a

Peer-to-Peer penalties are outlined in accordance with 441-10.1.III.a-e

Sample Letter of Infringement Violations

Association (like RIAA, MPAA, ESA, etc)

Attention:  Piracy Enforcement - DMCA Officer

DATE xxxxx

Dear DCMA officer,

I am an authorized representative of the Entertainment Software Association ("ESA"), which represents the intellectual property interests of twenty-four (24) companies that publish interactive games for video game consoles, personal computers, handheld devices and the Internet. 

ESA is providing this letter of notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and 17 USC Sec. 512 (c) to make Utah Valley State College aware of material on its network or system that infringes the exclusive copyright rights of one or more ESA members.  This notice is addressed to you as the agent designated by Utah Valley State College to receive notifications of claimed infringement, as so reflected in the current records of the U.S. Copyright Office.  Under penalty of perjury, we hereby affirm that the ESA is authorized to act on behalf of the ESA members whose exclusive copyright rights we believe to be infringed as described herein.

ESA has a good faith belief that the Internet site found at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx continues to infringe the rights of one or more ESA members by offering for download one or more unauthorized copies of one or more game products protected by copyright, including, but not limited to:

WarCraft

The unauthorized copies of such game product[s] appearing on, or made available through, such site are listed and/or identified thereon by their titles, variations thereof, or depictions of associated artwork (any such game titles, copies, listings and/or other depictions of, or references to, any contents of such game product, are hereinafter referred to as "Infringing Material").  Based on the information at its disposal on 10/1/2004 at 7:55 p.m. EDT (GMT -0400), ESA believes that the statements in this Notice are accurate and correctly describe the infringing nature and status of the Infringing Material.

Accordingly, ESA hereby requests Utah Valley University to immediately remove or disable access to the Infringing Material at the URL address identified above.

Should you have questions, please contact the ESA at the above listed mailing address or by replying to this email.  Please also include the above noted Reference Number in the subject line of all email correspondence.

We thank you for your cooperation in this matter.  Your prompt response is appreciated.

Regards,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
------------------------------
Infringement Detail:
…

Memo for Higher Education ReAuthorization Act Edit Content

MEMORANDUM
To: All University Students, Faculty, and Staff
From: Ray Walker
Chief Information Officer

Date: August 28, 2009

Subject: Illegal Sharing of Copyrighted Materials
The purpose of this memo is to officially notify all students, faculty, and staff, that it is a violation of federal law and University policy to share and/or distribute copyrighted materials without the permission of the copyright holder. Violators may be subject to civil and criminal prosecution under federal law, as well as personal sanctions specified in University policy.

The University has received complaints from representatives of the motion picture, music recording, and software industries. The majority of the complaints are directly related to the use of file-sharing software, such as KaZaA, Gnutella, and similar programs.

File sharing software is most commonly used to download music and other media. Many do not realize that this software may turn your personal computer into a server, or upload site, even if that was not your intent. Files on your network connected PC may then be illegally shared with every other person connected to the World Wide Web. It is imperative that the file sharing capability of these systems be disabled. If you do not know how to disable this function, please contact the Service Desk at 801-863-8888.

Industry representatives aggressively monitor the Internet to discover incidents of illegal file sharing. When violations are discovered, they contact the network owner and/or the Internet Service Provider and demand that the offending device be disconnected from the network. To protect the user and the University from further culpability under federal copyright law or University policy, the University will disable network access for any machine for which a complaint of copyright infringement has been received.

To restore network service, the user must contact the Service Desk and arrange to sign a document stating that the user has disabled the file sharing function of their software and has agreed to discontinue all illegal file sharing activity. If the user is named in additional complaints, they may lose long term access to network service. Students will be referred to the Dean of Students, staff to Human Resources, and Faculty to the cognizant Vice President for further review and action.

Action taken by the University to remedy a violation does not preclude the copyright holder from seeking civil and/or criminal prosecution for copyright infringement. The law specifies civil liability of litigation costs, attorney fees, and actual damages, or statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 for each work infringed, and, under certain circumstances, criminal penalties up to $250,000, and/or imprisonment.  In addition, actions taken to circumvent technological measures that are used to control access to copyrighted works or to prevent infringement of the exclusive rights of copyright owners are punishable by awards of statutory damages of $200 to $2,500 per act of circumvention.

Alternatives to downloading illegal music are to legally purchase it from music providers and stores.  The University does not specifically endorse any specific service or vendor but encourages all to acquire their music legally.

Thank you for taking this notification seriously.