To the William Paterson University community:

In August 2008, the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) was signed into law. Among other provisions, the law establishes new federal requirements for colleges and universities, designed to deter copyright infringement. The HEOA requires academic institutions to communicate to students on an annual basis about copyright infringement and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, as well as to use technology-based deterrents.

Therefore, in compliance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act this message is to inform you about illegal file sharing and the specific actions that are taken to combat illegal Peer-to-Peer file sharing on the William Paterson University network.

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing applications, such as KaZaA, Bit Torrent, etc., enable you to share music, movies and other digital files with computers all over the world.  If you use P2P to share copyrighted songs, movies or software without permission, you are breaking the law. It is like stealing, and you can be caught and prosecuted according to the law and subject to University disciplinary action.  YOU SHOULD ALSO BE AWARE THAT THOSE FOUND GUILTY FACE PENALTIES RANGING FROM $750 - $150,000 PER FILE.  While we have never received any subpoenas for the identity of a user to date (the first step a copyright holder takes toward legal action) we do want the University community to know that if properly served, the University would have to comply with the law and provide the user's identity.

Please be aware that the University has received a significant number of notices regarding illegal file sharing of copyright material while using the University’s network, WPUNJnet.  Copyright holders and their agents - e.g., the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), are taking an active role in seeking out and prosecuting those that they suspect are illegally sharing copyrighted materials over the Internet.  We will record and process these notices including forwarding the content of the notice to the account identified in the notice.

The William Paterson University community needs to be aware of the seriousness of these violations and what the consequences could be.  Information Technology policies posted at http://www.wpunj.edu/is/policies.dot  specifically the section on Legal Requirements Affecting Information Resources and Services address compliance with applicable laws and specifically prohibit the use of the WPUNJ network for copyright infringement.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me at x2303 or by email at bogdonl@wpunj.edu.

Len Bogdon

Director, Information Systems