West Virginia University

Downloading Music & Movies

Many students use peer-to-peer (P2P) programs, such as BitTorrent, Grokster, KaZaA and LimeWire, to download music, movies and software from the Internet. Such activity is typically illegal, and may subject students to a lawsuit. If you think I am overstating the risk, I recommend that you read the article Hidden Lawsuit Troubles on the Internet.

U.S. Copyright Law grants certain exclusive rights of reproduction, adaptation, distribution, performance, display, attribution, and integrity for intellectual property, artistic creations, etc. Works of literature, photographs, music, software (including shareware), film, and video are, as a general rule, copyrighted. Examples of probable violation of copyright laws include, but are not limited to, making unauthorized copies of any copyrighted material (e.g. commercial software, text, graphic images, music CDs, audio/video recordings, and films), or downloading/distributing copyrighted materials over computer networks (via peer-to-peer programs) or through other means.

West Virginia University does not tolerate copyright infringement in any form, including P2P file swapping of copyrighted works. Copyright infringement will result in disciplinary action, including, but not limited to, suspension of your network service.

West Virginia University prohibits the use of P2P programs on ResNet. There are alternatives, such as iTunes, Amazon, Napster and Rhapsody, from which you can legally download music and/or movies for a fee. Please note, there are many alternatives, and we cannot test each one to ensure that it works properly on ResNet. WVU makes no guarantee that your particular service will work properly on ResNet.

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