A mass e-mail sent to students, warning of the consequences of copyright violations, was intended to make users of ASU resources think twice before downloading or sharing copyrighted material over the Internet, according to William Lewis, ASU's chief information officer and vice provost.
Though the policy has been in place for some time, University officials felt a need to remind the ASU community due to recent notices from the recording industry.
Lewis sent what he called a "very carefully written" e-mail to all students, faculty and staff outlining the violations and consequences of illegally using University Internet facilities.
The e-mail indicated violators of ASU's policy are subject to "suspension or expulsion, employment sanctions for employees and reduction or loss of the privilege to use ASU computing resources."
"This was not meant to be a stab at any particular person; we sent this out to 70,000 people," Lewis said.
He said ASU legal counsel wrote the letter in response to several complaints it has received during the past months from monitoring agencies like the Recording Industry Association of America. The complaints reportedly indicated that file-sharing problems at ASU "seem to be getting worse, not better."
The University-wide reminder was a reaction from these warnings that the recording industry is serious. In early April, lawsuits were filed in federal courts in New York, New Jersey and Michigan against four students who allegedly stored thousands of songs on a central server from which students, staff and administrators at their universities could download.
RIAA officials have asked the courts to shut down the students' sites and fine them for the maximum damages of $150,000 a song.
Kent Morien, a journalism sophomore and former McClintock Hall resident, said he thinks expulsion is not an appropriate punishment for file sharing.
"There are so many other worse things that happen," said Morien, who claims to have downloaded more than 1,000 songs onto his computer while at ASU. "How could they just expel someone for downloading a song?"
Lewis said no ASU students have been expelled yet for illegal file sharing. He added that it is unfair to target only students.
"In reality it is not just students," Lewis said. "We are in the process of cleaning up some other issues too having to do with faculty and staff."
What do you think of ASU's Internet policies? Post your opinion in the forum below.
Reach the reporter at benjamin.honingford@asu.edu.
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