Stanford To Charge Reconnect Fee For DMCA Notices

theantipop writes "Stanford didn't like appearing on the MPAA's list of 25 worst offenders. Last week the university issued notice of a new policy in which students are charged a reconnection fee, ranging from $100 to $1000, if they fail to respond quickly enough to a DMCA complaint. The policy is to take effect September 1 this year. As a show of 'good faith' they are graciously allowing all students to start at the $100 fee level for subsequent notices."

PDF Dump

[Anonymous Coward]

1
Student DMCA Complaint Policy & Reconnection Fee
May 11, 2007
Background
While file-sharing technology has revolutionized our ability to share information
with one other, its illegal use for pirating copyrighted materials is at unacceptable levels
at Stanford. On March 30, 2007 Stanford was listed as one of the Motion Picture
Association of America's top 25 worst offenders
(http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=196 9). We have also had a steep
increase in the number of piracy complaints filed against us by the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA).
From September 2006 - January 2007, Stanford received nearly as many Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints as we received in the entire 2005-06
academic year. Of these complaints, 90% are directed at undergraduate and graduate
students: students who are jeopardizing the Stanford network by using it as platform to
steal songs, movies, TV shows, video games, books and software.
As of May 2007, the RIAA has identified seven Stanford network connections
that have been targeted for its "pre-litigation" notification program
(http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/022807.asp). The RIAA has said that it will
continue to send out pre-litigation notices each month.
Keeping up with the number of file-sharing complaints coming in under the
DMCA has required almost three full-time Stanford employees. It is an irresponsible
waste of Stanford's resources--your tuition dollars--to spend so much staff time
responding to copyright violations.
To defray these costs while underscoring Stanford's stance on copyright,
beginning September 1, 2007, Stanford will charge violators an Internet reconnection fee.
2
Student DMCA Policy
1st DMCA Complaint: The Information Security Office will forward a copy of the
complaint to the student, with an email instructing the student to
remove copyrighted content and respond to the Information
Security Office. A student has 48 hours to respond to the
Information Security Office (ISO) and attend to the DMCA
complaint. If the student addresses the DMCA complaint within
that time, there will be no disconnection, and no reconnection
fee. But if the student does not respond within 48 hours, the
student will be disconnected from the network. Once the DMCA
complaint has been addressed, the student will be charged $100
to be reconnected to the Stanford network.
2nd DMCA Complaint: The Information Security Office will forward a copy of the
complaint to the student and to the student's Residence Dean.
The student will be disconnected immediately from the network.
Once the DMCA complaint has been addressed, the student will
be charged $500 to be reconnected to the Stanford network.
3rd DMCA Complaint: The Information Security Office will forward a copy of the
complaint to the student. The student will be disconnected
immediately from the network. Network privileges will be
terminated. The Information Security Office will file a
complaint with Judicial Affairs for disciplinary action. New
network privileges may be granted at Stanford's discretion upon
the student agreeing to indemnify Stanford against any further
copyright violations, and paying up to $1000 to establish new
privileges.
Fees
Students may pay fees directly to the University within 30 days of the
reconnection; fees remaining unpaid after this time will be added onto monthly
University bills.
Although the purpose of these fees is to discourage piracy and compensate the
University for resources spent dealing with DMCA complaints, for the first year of the
program, the affected departments have agreed that these fees will be transferred to
ASSU's general operating budget to enhance Stanford student activities.
3
Reconnection Fee Effective Date
The imposition of the reconnection fee is the only substantial modification to
Stanford's treatment of DMCA complaints against studen

Re:What if the DMCA notice is fradulent or incorre

[tetromino]

Apparently, if within 48 hours of receiving the notice, the student responds to the Stanford Information Security Office and explains that he has a right to host the content, there is no disconnection and no $100 fee.

Re:PDF Dump

[theantipop]

I suppose it's worth mentioning that the $100 fee isn't automatic (I forgot to mention that in the summary). You have a window, albeit short, to respond before you get cut. Still, the notice seems to be cut and dry with harsh punishments despite the validity of any complaints received.

Re:Good!

[guruevi]

You got that the other way around. Students pay tuition and other charges related to their education. The MPAA is sponsored by the extra taxes raised on empty media, 'copyright enforcement' fees and other things you'll have to pay for whenever you see any type of media.

Re:Good!

[profplump]

First, they aren't leeching from your taxes any more than you are for driving on roads in other states -- there are certain things we decided should be publicly funded due to their public benefit. Education is one of those things, and it's probably one of the most important, at least if you believe in self-governance. You may not personally think that education is a worthwhile project to fund, but many people do, and you're not going to convince them otherwise by accusing students of leeching from "your" taxes.

But beyond that, Stanford is not part of the UC system, and is not particularly publicly funded. I'm sure they get some public money, but so do many other institutes, with or without students. For example, road construction companies derive a large amount of their income from public contracts, and very few construction companies enroll non-employee students.

Does your ignorance make you a loud mouth arrogant bastard with your head up your own ass WHO LEECHES FROM MY INTERWEBS, or should I just excuse you as someone that's angry about not going to college?

Re:abuse

[SlayerofGods]

Actually you'd end up costing yourself some money...

(f) Misrepresentations.-- Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section--
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification,
shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u sc_sec_17_00000512----000-.html [cornell.edu]

Re:If any of them pay this fee...

[FromageTheDog]

I do live in Stanford on-campus housing -- and I can assure you that every private AP within range of my MacBook is quite secure.

Re:College candidates - reprioritize your preferen

[nanosquid]

They'd probably cheer; academics tend to hate the restrictive policies of academic publishers.

Cambridge

[carpecerevisi]

A certain Cambridge college has implemented a similar policy. The fine is a charge of 2 terms' connection fee (totalling c. £50, around $100), and disconnection for 8 weeks of term time. However, this is only after investigation (we've had two cases so far, where both students were asked if the allegations were true, and admitted it). There is no policy, as of yet, for repeat offences.

However, I don't really, in all honesty, see the issue. The charges are only imposed if the allegations are "proven" to be true. Students admit to what is a breach of the ToS for the College network, and are punished accordingly, an amount enough to discourage them from repeating said actions, but not of unreasonably great significance ($100 on top of $550 (the total network charge for the average undergrad))

I would like to add that I don't necessarily see the ToC as being "correct", given that as far as I'm aware, downloading an avi of Prison Break is about the same cost as videotaping it from freeview Sky, however, I feel that's beyond the scope of this discussion

Accessing class materials.

[FatSean]

My school (newhaven.edu) uses the 'blackboard' system. This allows professors to make hand-outs and other documents available to everyone without wasting paper. All my professors prefer to communicate through email.

This 'reconnect' fee policy will likely be sue-worthy.

Re:If any of them pay this fee...

[enjerth]

There are a billion and two ways to fight people who issue fines with no authority to do so.

Umm, if it's THEIR network, then they DO have the authority.

Re:Suggestion to Stanford students:

[thib_gc]

Of these complaints, 90% are directed at undergraduate and graduate students

Where'd the other 10% go, pray tell?

(Disclaimer: I am a Stanford student and a Stanford employee.) To Stanford employees and faculty. That statement means that 90% of DMCA complaints are against IP addresses that turned out to be students, and 10% against IP addresses that turned out to be employees or faculty.

Re:how is this a big deal?

[compro01]

did you RTFA?

on the 2nd notice, they get automatically disconnected, regardless of if they responded that the 1st one was completely bogus.

**AA causes more work than the students

[Macgyver7017]

I was the syadmin at a private college for a few years, but I occasionally wore the network admin hat as well. >50% of DMCA notices we received were outright invalid. They referred to ip address that we owned which weren't even in use, "internal ip addresses" that didn't exist, etc. The majority of my time spent dealing with DMCA notices wasn't spent tracking down offenders, it was spent verifying that a given address wasn't in use, and then responding to that effect.

Re:Suggestion to Stanford students:

[kscguru]

You can address it to "resident" for each room number, no need to know names or anything else. Alternatively, do a ping sweep (or similar tactic) on your local network, and send notices to their office regarding all IPs you hit.

Ah, the amateur hacker at work. Stanford's IT people are much more clever than that.

Stanford filters the tackdown notices for "real" ones. Dorm numbers / street addresses aren't enough. A valid takedown request has an IP address and time of connection ... and guess what? Stanford looks in their router logs, verifies that a connection was made with that IP at that time. If you want to claim your computer wasn't even there, Stanford IT is going to ask exactly how packets with your IP address entered your port in the switch. And then you get expelled for your transparent lie.

The IT folks are very much on the student's side here. Despite all the knee-jerk reactions here on Slashdot, illegitimate complaints simply don't get through - that's what a competent IT staff buys you. Of course, that much staff time on the student's behalf really does take money.