File Sharing Alert Letter to Residence Hall Students

March 29, 2007

Dear Student,

The Recording Industry of America (RIAA), an organization that represents music copyright owners, is targeting students at universities that it believes are illegally using peer-to-peer software to share music files.

The RIAA has filed hundreds of lawsuits nationally against students the past few years. Prior to filing a lawsuit, a subpoena is typically presented to the owner of the network seeking the identity of a specific network user. You should be aware that as the owner of the University of Minnesota network, the University will comply with any lawful subpoena and will provide the user's identity and any other information sought.

In a Feb 28 press release, the RIAA has announced the launch of "a new and strengthened campus anti-piracy initiative" and "a new process that gives students the opportunity to avoid a formal lawsuit by settling prior to a litigation being filed." The RIAA also announced that an initial batch of 400 such letters were sent to students at universities around the country. Although University of Minnesota students were not among those listed in the initial group, the RIAA has stated its intent to send several hundred such letters monthly. The University will forward any such letters to the student the University believes to be the user, based upon the information provided by the RIAA.

Illegal peer-to-peer file sharing of copyrighted works is a violation of the University's Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources Policy. If you have downloaded file-sharing software from the Internet to your computer for illegal peer-to-peer file sharing, please remove it from your computer immediately. Please visit the links below to read the RIAA press release, learn how to disable peer-to-peer filesharing programs, and familiarize yourself with the University's Acceptable Use of Technology Resources Policy.

Sincerely,

Steve Cawley
University Chief Information Officer and Vice President

Links:

RIAA press release: http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/022807.asp

How to disable various peer-to-peer filesharing programs: http://security.uchicago.edu/guidelines/peer-to-peer/

U of M Acceptable Use Policy:  http://policy.umn.edu/Policies/it/Use/ITRESOURCES.html