Columbia will be placing a restriction on illegal file downloading throughout campus buildings, tentatively set to start in December. The college has been working on setting restrictions over the past year, but new federal regulations kick-started the process.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes individuals who possess or distribute copyrighted material without permission by the copyright holder. The law, which was recently revised, is the result of the ongoing illegal file-sharing that is taking place worldwide. Since these provisions were established, the college has been working to protect itself under the Act and also to discourage copyright infringement from taking place within the

college community.

Along with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Higher Education Opportunity Act is also requiring universities to take technical measures to help reduce illegal copyrighted transfers.

Tanya Gill, Columbia’s network security administrator, said the college has been receiving notices of infringement for the past three years, which is why these regulations are being instated. The restrictions will be placed within the college’s wireless network rather than the internal network, Gill said. The wireless network is being monitored in order to make it easier to supervise the student’s activity.

If a student attempts to upload or download copyrighted material, a notification will appear on the screen asking the student if they want to proceed with the violation. If a student decides to continue, a block will be placed on their Internet access. Because the restrictions will work within Columbia’s wireless network, students using personal computers are liable if they are connected to the college’s network.

The college is working with Audible Magic Corporation, an anti-piracy company that works with corporations such as NBC, Disney and Universal Music. The company has provided the college with CopySense, a network appliance that identifies illegal transfers of copyrighted works over peer-to-peer networks. The company provides more than 60 colleges with CopySense, including the University of Illinois at Chicago.

According to Jay Friedman, vice president of Marketing and Product Management at Audible Magic, CopySense has been on the market for five years and was created because of illegal downloading that has happened predominantly on college campuses.

“We strongly encourage communication regarding the violations,” Friedman said. “We work with a point-based system, which is based on an accumulated point strategy. The school can implement different levels of discipline or sanction.”

The college’s restriction will work on a three strike policy—on a first offense, a student will be locked out of Columbia’s server for 15 minutes. A second-time offender will be locked out of the server until they meet with Student Affairs. The consequences for a third-time offender are still being decided by the college’s Information Technology team and Student Affairs.

Bernadette McMahon, associate vice president and chief information officer of Columbia’s Information Technology department, said if the college does not comply with The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it is at risk of losing all Internet connectivity, which would be a major concern for the college.

“It’s harder to just shut down the Internet because it is part of our curriculum to share some of these documents,” McMahon said. “It would be detrimental to the music students or film and video students to not allow them to share their files.”

The college encourages students to refer to RespectCopyrights.org, an industry Web site which offers step-by-step instructions to make sure that copyright laws are not violated.  The Web site also links to other sites where people can view movies and television shows legally.

“We want to educate people not to do things illegally,” McMahon said. “This is becoming a bigger issue and it needs to stop.”