DMCA Violation Procedures
- Information Technology Services (ITS) is informed that a student has a possible DMCA violation, either from an outside agency (e.g. RIAA), or from an internal search.
- ITS identifies the IP address associated with the alleged violation and disables that IP address for the alleged violation.
- Either ITS or the student contacts Residential Life (either via ticket or phone call) to inform them of the disabled port for the IP address.
- Residential Life staff (typically a Help Desk student worker) either has the student bring in their computer (e.g. laptop) to the Grace King Hall (GKH) office or a staff member goes to the student’s room to reconnect the port/IP address.
- Residential Life staff has the student fill out a form regarding the University’s DMCA policy.
- The form has two options for the student to sign off on: (1) acknowledging that they did not have legal rights for the file(s) found on their computer, and that they will remove the files; or (2) acknowledging that they had legal rights to have a copy of the file (due to owning the physical DVD or CD), but do not have the right to share the file with others.
- The document also informs the student that if there is a second offense, they will be referred to the Dean of Students Office for violation of the LSU Code of Student Conduct.
- In addition, the form states that by signing above, the student understands that they have been implicated in a DMCA copyright violation and a $50 fine will be charged to their Bursar account.
- If Residential Life analyzes the device (e.g. laptop, desktop) and determines that the student is not in violation of copyright law, appropriate paperwork will be completed and no fine will be accessed to their Bursar account.
- If a student has a multiple offense (e.g. second offense, third offense, etc…), the ticket is forwarded to the NOC (confirms a multiple offense has taken place), and then the ticket is forwarded to the registered DMCA agent at LSU (currently the Chief IT Security & Policy Officer).
- The registered DMCA agent then writes a formal memo to Dean of Students Office, and refers the matter to the Dean of Students Office for disciplinary action. The student’s IP address/port is not activated until after the Dean of Students Office has met with the student.
- The Dean of Students Office then contacts the registered DMCA agent, and may request that the IP address/port be reactivated.
- Before activating the IP address/port, the Residential Life staff member prints off a copy of the student’s ‘shared’ files.
- After obtaining the student’s signature and a copy of the ‘shared’ files, Residential Life staff place the completed paperwork in the Policy & Process Coordinator’s mailbox.
- A copy of the signed form (verifying that the student is indeed in violation of copyright) is provided by Residential Life staff to the ITS NOC, forwarded to the IT Security & Policy Office (specifically the Chief IT Security & Policy Officer), and then assigned to the ITS Business Office.
- The ITS Business Office processes the $50 fine to the student’s Bursar account.
- The Policy & Process Coordinator enters the information regarding the alleged violation in a spreadsheet for the appropriate academic year and creates a DMCA file for the student.
- If the student had a previous DMCA file, all information from the file is copied and forwarded to the Dean of Students Office for a potential violation of the LSU Code of Student Conduct.
- Students found responsible for violating the LSU Code of Student Conduct in reference to the DMCA policy are typically sanctioned to complete the Ethical Decision Making Class, along with other applicable sanctions (depending on the amount, nature and timeliness of the alleged violations).
This page was last updated Wednesday, June 30, 2010