To: All Undergrad Students & All Grad Students <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "Peter M. Siegel, Chief Information Officer" <cio@uiuc.edu>

Reply-To: cio-p2p@uiuc.edu
 Subject: MASSMAIL - Peer to Peer Filesharing-Copyright Responsibility

May 2, 2003

To: The Student Community at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign:

As discussed in a recent Daily Illini article (April 17, p. 1), the 
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has recently sued four 
students at other universities for possessing and distributing copyrighted 
music without the consent of the copyright owners. The recording and movie 
industries have also requested that universities reassess their policies 
and practices, and increase their educational efforts about copyright 
infringement. More than that, it is just plain unfair to artists to take 
and enjoy their work without their receiving appropriate compensation. We 
are concerned and want you to understand why this is important to you as 
students on the Champaign-Urbana campus.

The likelihood of individual students being pursued for misuse of 
copyrighted materials has increased dramatically over this past year. If 
someone owns a currently valid copyright in a work-- a song, video, image, 
article or computer program, for example-- and you obtain it, use it, or 
share it without paying for it, without seeking appropriate permission 
from the copyright owner, or without obtaining authorization under the 
copyright law such as via  "fair use", you may be violating copyright law. 
As an example, you might use peer-to-peer software programs in order to 
obtain a free copy of a favorite song or to share it with others, where 
the copyright is owned by another. If you do not have permission from the 
owner or authorization under the law, you could be sued by the copyright 
holder of that song, have criminal charges brought against you, and/or be 
subject to discipline by the University. Each of these alternatives has 
happened to students at other universities. At Illinois, students have had 
their network privileges revoked, along with other disciplinary action, 
when the network was misused over copyright issues.

No one on our campus should be serving out copyrighted songs or movies in 
this way. If you are using peer-to-peer file sharing programs, check that 
you are not inadvertently serving out unauthorized copyrighted data; many 
peer-to-peer software packages automatically configure your computer to 
share files, but you are responsible nonetheless. If you currently have 
unauthorized copyrighted information on your computer, you should remove 
it.

The University takes very seriously its responsibilities as steward of the 
campus network. We encourage you to take full advantage of our wonderful 
electronic resources to advance your education, including fostering and 
creating new friendships, and communicating and sharing ideas with your 
peers here and around the world. We want to ensure that, as you do so, you 
take seriously your responsibility to respect copyrighted material.

Sincerely,

Pete Siegel
Chief Information Officer
Urbana Campus
This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

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