The
entire CityU community is reminded once again of the University's
commitment to the protection of intellectual property and
copyrighted material. The Computing Services Centre (CSC),
as the administrator of the campus network, will take all
necessary actions (e.g., blocking the network connection or
computer account, disciplinary action, etc.) against any user
who is found performing illegal copying of digital materials
on the campus network - whether music, video, text, or pictures.
Moreover,
those local and international organisations that are charged
with protecting copyrighted materials or are actually the
owners of those copyrighted materials (e.g. the Mediaforce,
the Motion Picture Association (MPA), and the International
Federation of the Phonographic Industry (Hong Kong) Limited
etc.) are aggressively searching for copyright violators on
the Internet and will take independent legal action against
such violators. They can discover and monitor these activities
by simply participating in the same peer-to-peer file sharing
activity as the violators. These industry associations have,
in the past, successfully prosecuted many violators, and as
a result, received substantial monetary compensations from
them.
It is
obvious that the actions taken by these organisations did
not target at the University, but rather at the individuals
engaged in such violations. These organisations are allowed
to find out the identities of copyright violators from Internet
service providers (including universities) as long as they
follow certain legal procedures. As such, the University,
upon legitimate requests from these organizations, is obliged
to respond to them with the names of those violators who are
on the campus network.
The result
may well be that the organisations will take legal action
against these violators and there is really nothing the University
can do to shield them from such action. Staff or students
who use any computer, including those owned by the University,
for such activity expose both themselves and potentially the
University to legal action.
In some
cases, computers can be compromised, and subsequently being
turned into servers serving illegal copyright protected materials
without computer owners' knowledge. If you suspect that your
computer has become one of such servers (often indicated by
excessive disc activity when it is connected to the network,
your having received a network bandwidth warning when you
do little network activity, or by the machine inexplicably
slowing down), please contact us at cc@cityu.edu.hk.
Please
also note that most peer-to-peer file sharing programs act
as a server by default and in some cases (BitTorrent, for
example) their ability to share file among users cannot be
disabled. If you are downloading copyright protected materials,
there is a very good chance that you are also distributing
copyright protected materials.
Therefore,
to protect yourself and the University, make sure you won't
engage in the sharing or use of illegal copyrighted materials,
and never share your account or the computer registered under
your name with others for engaging in these activities.