Policy on Resident Use of Copyrighted Materials

The Internet is an essential tool for UW-Madison in support of its academic and research missions. It also enriches the lives of student residents as they pursue their academic and personal goals. Along with these benefits come challenges and responsibilities. One of the most critical is conforming to copyright laws. UW-Madison's Appropriate Use Policy (AUP) is found at http://www.cio.wisc.edu/policies/appropriateuse.aspx.

Trading of copyrighted music, movies, games and software over the Internet may not be legal. You must have the prior consent of the copyright holder to download and/or trade these materials. Copying music, etc., without this consent is illegal. At UW-Madison, we take copyright violations seriously and such violations may result in the cancellation of network access privileges.

Most file-sharing programs install themselves with world-wide sharing enabled by default. So, any system with such software installed can easily be sharing materials with the world without the user(s) of the system being aware of this. If you have any questions about this software and how to ensure legal use, contact the DoIT Help Desk at 264-HELP.

Should copyright infringement be suspected, the following actions will be taken.

Housing's Copyright Violation Action

A resident is flagged for a copyright infringement violation by a copyright holder directly or indirectly through a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint (such as Cease and Desist e-mail notification). The alleged copyright infringement notice will be forwarded to the alleged infringer (tied to the accusing IP address). The resident will be notified of possible outcomes and of the steps they need to take to restore access to the network. The potential outcomes are listed below.

1st Receipt of Copyright Infringement Notice

1. The alleged infringer is placed into a quarantine network which permits access only to UW Madison campus IP addresses.
2. The alleged infringer will be restored to full access upon electronic confirmation that they have removed the copyrighted file(s) from their computer, have submitted a signed form confirming that they understand the appropriate use policies and copyright laws and agree to not use any file sharing program to download or share copyrighted material henceforth without the written express consent from the copyright holder.

NOTE: It is strongly recommended that they contact DoIT Help Desk (264-HELP) and get it professionally checked for any file sharing program, and have both the file sharing program and the alleged copyrighted file(s) removed from their computer to avoid future violation.

2nd Receipt of Copyright Infringement Notice

1. The alleged infringer is placed into a quarantine network which permits access only to UW Madison campus IP addresses.
2. To be removed from quarantine, you are required to take your computer to a repair service and have it scanned for any viruses, malware or P2P applications.  You are free to take your computer to any repair service, but we recommend that you take advantage of the FREE virus removal service offered at the Dept. of Information Technology (DoIT) walk-in help desk located in the Computer Sciences building.  You will need to provide a copy of the receipt showing that your computer has been cleaned and then your ResNet network access will be restored.

3rd Receipt of Copyright Infringement Notice

1. The alleged infringer is placed into a quarantine network which permits access only to UW Madison campus IP addresses.
2. The alleged infringer will remain in quarantine for the remainder of the current academic year or the lease period of their apartment.