UW-Madison was recently notified by the Recording Industry Association of America that it would receive settlement letters targeted at individuals who have allegedly participated in illegal music file sharing and copyright infringement.
According to an e-mail sent by UW-Madison Interim Chief Information Officer Ken Frazier to all UW-Madison students on Friday, the university will not send these personal letters to any users of the campus network.
At the same time, the university will take disciplinary action against students or staff who have infringed on copyrights or violated the university's Appropriate Use Policy, according to Frazier's e-mail. Actions may include temporary or permanent termination of an individual's access to the campus network. Such actions may coincide with any penalties administered by the Dean of Students Office or University Housing, if the offender is a student.
""Legally, we feel we are in a position to not forward these letters,"" said Brian Rust, communications manager for UW-Madison's Division of Information Technology.
Rust said the recording industry singled out 15 IP addresses to send letters to but that it cannot contact the actual individuals without the cooperation of the university.
The university has both the IP addresses and the names of the particular individuals assigned to them, whereas the recording industry has only the IP addresses it suspects of downloading or sharing illegally, Rust stated.
Rust said DoIT and the university feels it would infringe on the privacy of students to provide their information to the recording industry.
In order to actually gain the names of individuals who use particular IP addresses, the recording industry would need to obtain subpoenas from a court. The settlement letters, which generally ask for $750 per instance of copyright infringement or approximately $3,000 per individual on average, are a way to avoid the subpoena process and potential legal fees the recording industry would possibly need to pay in court cases, according to Rust.
""If they feel this is a problem, [they should] use the courts,"" Rust said, pointing out that settlement letters do not have the authority of legal documents like subpoenas.
