From

From: Graves, Diane J.
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 2:52 PM
To: Trinity Students
Subject: File-sharing, Trinity and your fall break

Trinity students:

OK, it’s time for me to send you one of those annoying reminders about file-sharing. (Sorry!)

This fall term, I have received at least one Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice per day. The notices have been about illegally shared music, movie, business software and game file-sharing. A wide range of software applications have been implicated: Gnutella and BitTorrent are the most common, but I have also seen mention of uTorrent, LimeWire, PirateBay and others. Trinity is required to act on those take-down notices as part of the Higher Education Act of 2008.

Please understand that the entertainment industry (the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, the Business Software Association and the Entertainment Software Association—and their individual members) are particularly focused on college campus peer-to-peer file-sharing activity. This is in sharp contrast to activity that attracts little or no notice on home high-speed networks. No such luck here!

As Fall Break (and next month, Thanksgiving) approaches, I ask that you think about how you use Trinity’s network. What you use when you are at home or off campus is your decision, but when you are on campus and connected to the TU network, please remove the file-sharing software from your computer. If you don’t know how to do it, please find the instructions on this site: http://iraa.trinity.edu/iraa/x540.xml And while you are at it, check out Trinity’s policy, so you will know why this is a concern from a legal perspective--and what will happen if you get caught: http://iraa.trinity.edu/iraa/x118.xml.

Thanks for reading, and have a great Fall Break!

Diane Graves

Diane J. Graves

University Librarian and Professor

Chair, Faculty Senate

Coates Library

Trinity University

One Trinity Place

San Antonio, TX 78212

ph: 210-999-8166

fax: 210-999-8182

mobile: 210-528-0442