The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee has joined its sister school, University of Wisconsin in Madison, and also the University of Maine, in refusing to send along the RIAA's collection letters. Here is a copy of the letter the University's students received from the school:
Encl: Illegal File Sharing at UWM
SUBJECT: Illegal File Sharing at UWM
This announcement is being sent to all known UWM faculty, staff and
student e-mail addresses.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has recently
increased its threat of lawsuits against students and others who engage
in illegal digital file sharing. This is in response to perceived
violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which
specifically addresses copyright infringement of digital materials such
as music, movies and software.
As you may know from recent press reports, the RIAA is now targeting
individuals who live in university residence halls or use university
computing resources. Because the RIAA can only identify violators by
their ISP (Internet Service Provider) identifier, they are sending
letters to universities requesting that these letters be forwarded to
students, faculty and staff.
The RIAA notified UWM of its plans to send settlement proposal letters
for individuals on the UWM campus whom they believe are guilty of
violating federal copyright laws. These letters request that a monetary
settlement be made by the violator in lieu of court action by the RIAA.
After consultation with UW System, our own legal counsel and with our
understanding of federal law, UWM has decided that these letters will
not be passed on to individuals. However, should RIAA send UWM a lawful
subpoena for users’ account information, UWM will comply.
It is important to be aware of copyright law and avoid illegal P2P
(peer-to-peer) file sharing.
For more information, visit the UWM Information Security Web Site at
https://www3.uwm.edu/imt/security/index.cfm.
If you have questions, please e-mail dmca@uwm.edu.
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9 comments:
The question I have is, how long do you keep your IP logs for?
Just read Arizona's in as well. These Universities are pretty clever..not taking too much guff. Good on them!
pepper, do you have a link?
Here's the link..hope this works;
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/tools/papertrail/070329/while_others_settle_arizona_st.htm?s_cid=rss:site1
Unfortunately, it looks like Berkeley is not yet on board. The article in the Daily Californian does say they'll forward the letters along... though it doesn't specify what, if any, information they'll relay to the RIAA so I suppose there's still some hope.
The article is dated on the last day before spring break, so I doubt any students will have actually gotten the letters yet... most likely Monday, when we're all back to the grind.
http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=23984
Wrong, Pepper.
It was Arizona State, and they're cooperating to the nth degree, actually inviting RIAA to come on campus and address the students with its propaganda.
It was just the ASU students who were protesting.
Drat! Sorry, no wonder the students are rebelling.
I notice here that the RIAA now seem to be sending out 'Preservation Notices' to University administrations in advance of their settlement letters. This is no doubt in response to reports from some Universitys that they do not routinely preserve the info that the RIAA rely on to identify their Joe Doe's. Surely such a request has no legal foundation and could / should be dismissed without subsequent repercussions.
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