8. Internet Freedoms on Campus

RECOMMENDATIONS: 

The internet has become a critical part of expression on college campuses. Therefore, colleges should explicitly protect internet freedoms for students and faculty. One of the most troubling developments in the past year is the excessive enforcement of copyright regulations. Colleges should not become copyright cops. Colleges should be careful not to exceed the minimal requirements of copyright law, since these may threaten campus liberties. Colleges should explicitly protect the parody and fair use exceptions to copyright law, and recognize that not all file sharing violates copyright law. Students are entitled to due process for copyright allegations. Those who accidentally or inadvertently violate copyright restrictions should not be punished in any way, since willful violation must be shown to constitute a true violation of copyright law.

 

COPYRIGHT REGULATIONS

COMMENT: Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), in order to be immune from lawsuits, a service provider must implement “a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of...repeat infringers.” In an Oct. 3, 2002 letter, the recording and film industries warned college presidents about “an urgent matter regarding copyright infringement by some university students.” Entertainment companies want colleges to crack down on file-sharing by students using campus networks.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) urged colleges not to monitor computer networks for copyright infringement: “Network monitoring can have a chilling effect on the marketplace of ideas. In order to monitor at the level desired by the copyright industry, to detect file transfers ‘without authorization,’ institutions would have to delve into the content and intended uses of almost every communication. Such a level of monitoring is not only impracticable; it is incompatible with intellectual freedom.”(SPLC, Nov. 13, 2002; Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 6, 2002) The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit April 3 against four students at Michigan Technological University, Princeton University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for providing file-sharing on websites.

 

a) Harvard University: after previously only cutting off network access for users while they are sharing copyrighted materials, Harvard officials feel obligated by the DMCA to cut off network access for a year to any student found infringing copyright laws after they receive a first warning.

(Harvard Crimson, April 11, 2003; April 16, 2003)

 

b) Kent State University: the university shut down a website with anime images, including some sexual images. Computer systems analyst Jeff Bailey, who created the website, is head of the KSU Anime Association. Administrators claimed that the site violated copyright laws and failed to follow the University Policy Register, which requires that websites must "relate to the university's missions of teaching, research and service."

(Daily Kent Stater, Feb. 28, 2003)

c) New Jersey Institute of Technology: the Student Senate, at the best of administrators, passed a resolution for a ban on all file sharing on the campus network.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2003)

 

d) Ohio State University: in May, 2003, police officers raided four dormitory rooms and seized computers from students who were running a file-sharing service on the campus network. The students may be charged with stealing state resources for using the network.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2003)

 

e) Penn State University: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sent a legal warning to Penn State University, accusing it of copyright infringement by distributing the songs of Usher on its ftp server. In reality, the server held professor Peter Usher’s work on radio-selected quasars and a song by astronomers about a gamma ray satellite. The network security office in turn told the manager of the astronomy server to remove the song or have the server shut down in 24 hours. RIAA apologized for the mistake caused by its automated search engines.

However, Penn State has taken strong action against file-sharing, using special software to track down students who are sharing files, issuing more than 200 warnings in a month that another violation will result in losing access to the university network.

(CNET news.com, May 12, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2003)

 

f) Purdue University: On Nov. 25, 2003, the Supreme Court of California ruled that former Purdue student Matthew Pavlovich could not be sued in California for publishing codes online in 1999 that can be used to unscramble encrypted DVDs.

(Pavlovich v. Superior Court, 2002 WL 31641714 (Calif. Nov. 25, 2002))

 

g) University of Cincinnati: campus police have identified 13 residence hall residents who they suspected of copyright violations after searching computers in the residence halls. Downloading the material is being treated as a violation of the student code of conduct. Judicial Affairs Director Daniel Cummins said that event though students may not realize that their downloading illegal, “not knowing does not give you an excuse.”

(University of Cincinnati News Record, Feb. 14, 2003)

 

h) University of Michigan: graduate student Niels Provos moved his research from a campus server to one in the Netherlands for fear that it might violate a Michigan copyright-protection law.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, May 16, 2003)

 

 

INTERNET CENSORSHIP

COMMENT: Courts continue to view internet restrictions with skepticism. On March 6, 2003, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Children’s Online Protection Act for a second time, declaring the law unconstitutionally overbroad.(SPLC, April 1, 2003; ACLU v. Ashcroft, 322 F.3d 240 (3d Cor. 2003))

 

i) Cal Poly State University at San Luis Obispo: the executive committee of the Academic Senate rejected a proposal to ban pornography on campus computers. The resolution would have allowed professors to view sexually explicit images only for academic purposes.

(Mustang Daily, Feb. 10, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, March 14, 2003; AP, May 15, 2003)

 

j) University of California at San Diego: administrators retracted their demand for Che Café, a student organization’s website, to remove a link to the website of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Campus officials had feared that because FARC is a designated foreign terrorist group, the website link was a violation of the Patriot Act. Gary Ratcliff, director of University Centers, wrote, “Providing material support or resources to a designated [terrorist organization] is a violation of federal law. Using UCSD computing resources to violate federal laws is against UCSD Policies." UCSD officials backed down after public complaints, and later asserted that they only objected to hosting the FARC website (which hasn’t happened since 1996). UCSD had previously ordered the removal of the Groundwork Collective’s link to the alleged terrorist group the Kurdistan Workers Party, and placed the organization on probation.

(SPLC, Oct. 8, 2002; letter)

 

k) University of Illinois at Chicago: UIC officials spent thousands of dollars on a lawsuit to stop a website from operating with the domain name uiconline.com. The suit also complained that the site used logos and colors similar to UIC’s. The site, owned by UIC student government president Angel Alvarez, linked to the library, the registrar's office, and academic departments.

(Chicago Tribune, April 13, 2003)

 

COMMENT: Colleges have no right to stop anyone from using the name of the college as part of an informational website about the college. By this same logic, a college could stop an independent student newspaper from using the college’s name.

 

l) University of Southern Maine: administrators apologized to psychology professor John Broida and paid him a financial settlement after they cancelled his distance learning classes when he was accused of making racist comments. Faculty were angered by a “prior review” recommending that videotapes for online courses should be reviewed before their use.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, August 9, 2002; Oct. 2, 2002; AIA Campus Report, Sept. 2002; Nov. 2002)

Back to 2002-03 State of Academic Freedom Report

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