Campus crackdown on illegal downloads
ALBANY -- Colleges and universities are now being required to crack down on those who illegally download music, movies and other Internet content.
Campuses are now required to educate students on the severity of the crime and have a policy in place that reduces the risk of illegal downloading.
The revisions are part of the 2008 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
William Traver, Director for Infrastructure and Programming at St. Rose, says requiring colleges to crackdown is a quick way to catch violators. "It's a hot topic because it's copyrighted material.
"If you're sharing material you haven't paid for or have no legal right to, you can't use it," he says. "With colleges, we're a captive audience. They look at us to monitor some of the activity a little easier than at home users."
CBS 6 called area colleges and universities to see if action has already been taken.
Siena is educating it's students but a spokesperson had no knowledge if there are security measures in place to limit access to some websites.
St. Rose is not only educating students in forums and in handbooks but they also have installed a security system that slows down the download process. At St. Rose to download one song it would take a student 10 hours to do so.
SUNY Albany is educating students and already had a security system in place.
HVCC says they are not only educating students but their system alerts technicians and administrators everytime an illegal download is attempted.
Schenectady County Community College says they are not educating students yet and have no plan of action but do say it is on their agenda.
Russell Sage gives students a document entitled Policy and Procedures at the beginning of each semester which outlines that peer to peer file sharing (illegal downloading) is prohibited. They also have installed internal firewalls that prevents students from downloading illegal content onto computers.
Campuses are also handing down their own punishments for any student caught in the act. The consequences begin with warnings, losing the ability to live on campus and even lead to expulsion.
Civil penalties could cost violators $750 per song to start and up to $150,000 in damages.
Criminal penalties could land someone in prison for up to 5 years and facing fines up to $250,000.
