Copyright Infringement & Related Information

Infringement Topics

Compliance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act

In August 2008, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) was signed into federal law. Along with numerous other conditions, the updated law requires all campuses take steps to combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material.

Violating a copyright is an illegal activity

Transmitting or receiving copyright protected information electronically or otherwise without the consent of the owner is illegal. For more information about copyright laws refer to the U.S. Copyright Office.

What are Copyright Infringement Notices?

There are several organizations and business that actively searches for the illegal distribution of copyrighted material. Upon discovery of the illegal activity, a notice is sent to the owner of the IP address space from which the protected material is being distributed.

What happens if the University receives a DCMA notice about my illegal sharing of copyright protected material?

On the first offense, your network access will be denied until you have indicated that you understand that you must not use SIU resources to illegal share copyrighted material. On the second offense, students will be referred to Student Rights & Responsibilities office, and university employees will be referred to their Dean or Vice Chancellor.

How do you know it was me illegally distributing copyright protected material and not someone else?

Each computer on the data network must have a unique address known as an IP Address. The IP Address can be thought of as being similar to the addresses used for houses. Your computer is configured to request an IP address when it is connected to the network. A log entry with a time stamp is made for each IP address request which includes your network ID. The copyright infringement notices includes the IP address that was illegally sharing the protected material and the time it was doing so. A correlation is made between the information in the notice and the log entry.