Hi,
Most acceptable use policies have some "legal disclaimer" statement
which says something like "if you do something illegal with our network,
we aren't liable, you are".
http://www.merit.edu/mn/about/policies.html
http://www.merit.edu/mn/about/policies-acceptableuse.html
It looks like the second clause of their AUP prohibits what she is
doing:
"2. Users must respect the legal protection applied to programs, data,
photographs, music, written documents and other material as provided by
copyright, trademark, patent, licensure and other proprietary rights
mechanisms."
However, if their administrators are actively scanning for people using
fileshare because they are using up excessive bandwidth, she may get
away "under the radar" for a while since a dialup connection doesn't
represent the same bandwidth impact as someone on a 100MB connection in
a college dorm.
Whether or not Merit notifies her that she should stop, you should
probably know that there are indications that federal agencies may also
begin filing the same kinds of copyright infringement suits against
private citizens that RIAA has been doing for the last few years. It
hasn't happened yet, but I've read two recent articiles indicating that
it could start, soon.
John A. Resotko
Head of Systems Administration
Michigan State University College of Law
208 Law College Building
East Lansing, MI 48824-1300
email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 517-432-6836
Fax: 517-432-6861
>>> Margaret Wilson <[log in to unmask]> 10/27/2004 7:39:16 PM >>>
A friend's daughter is into sharing music using WinMX, which I've
recently learned is one of these P2P file-sharing apps. Off course,
she's using it for sharing copyrighted music. They have dial-up access
via MichNet through one of the school systems. My question is, is there
anything in the Acceptable Use Policy which prohibits such use? I'll
read the policy if need be, but I was wondering if anyone knows off the
top of their heads. ??
Thx!
Margaret
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