Skip to Main Content

Illegal File Sharing & HEOA

Illegal File Sharing Provisions of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) are published to let our campus community know what resources and obligations the College has relating to illegal sharing of electronic content.

Annual Disclosure

  • New students and their parents are informed about copyright law and the College’s policies, disciplinary procedures and consequences regarding copyright infringement during orientation sessions. All new students also receive a copyright brochure in their orientation packets.
  • The College’s Acceptable Use Policy specifically states that all users of College technology must abide by copyright law.
  • The College also has a comprehensive Copyright Policy that is based on current copyright law.
  • The EDUCAUSE listing of Legal Sources of Online Content offers legal alternatives to unauthorized digital media use.
  • ITS offers several copyright workshops to the campus community each semester.
  • New faculty members are advised of the College’s copyright policy during their orientation sessions.
  • The Executive Director of ITS meets with the Student Association each semester to discuss copyright issues.
  • The Academic Technology Committee discusses copyright issues and is involved in the development and implementation of copyright and related policies.
  • ITS personnel are required to abide by the College’s Copyright Policy in all aspects of their job responsibilities. They are also directed to educate the campus community about copyright law and the College’s Copyright Policy when they receive requests that would violate either one.

Plan to “Effectively Combat” the Unauthorized Distribution of Copyrighted Material

The College currently utilizes bandwidth-shaping technology to prioritize network traffic. This system drastically limits the amount of bandwidth available to P2P applications to point that it is extremely impractical to share files. Realizing though that there are legal uses of P2P applications, the College is also considering the use of other technologies including Allot Dynamic Actionable Recognition Technology (DART) and/or the Audible Magic CopySense Appliance.

Upon legal notification of a copyright infringement claim involving music, video, software or other digital content, the College will remove the offending content as quickly as possible and notify the alleged infringer of the claim.

A first offense of copyright infringement by a student will result in a mandatory meeting with the Executive Director of Information Technology Services to discuss the legal and ethical implications of copyright infringement. The goal of this meeting is to educate the student and deter repeat infringements by the student. The student must agree to not infringe upon any more copyrighted materials.

A second or repeat copyright infringement by the same student will result in a referral to the College’s Judicial System where a possible outcome may be the loss of access to the College’s technology resources for a specified period of time.

A copyright infringement by an employee will be referred to the employee’s immediate supervisor.