Please note that mere .mp3 downloading is NOT ‘illegal’ in the sense of it being of violation of criminal laws unless the work in question has NOT been released or the work in question is being duplicated and sold. If a work has been distributed on a promotional basis within the music and/or broadcast industries, but not to the general public, it is considered ‘released.’

Therefore, referring such matters not meeting the stated criteria to law enforcement officials is providing them with information regarding an activity over which they have no jurisdiction and quite frankly, don’t care about. If anything, casual downloading, in the worst case, is copyright infringement.

Such downloading may also be “fair use” if the downloader has already paid for the downloaded content in another form, such as an LP record, cassette tape, CD, or DVD. Even if the downloader has not previously purchased the content, it may still qualify as fair use if it is to be used for an educational purpose. I would assume that most of the University’s activities are conducted for an ‘educational purpose’.

Such a determination can not be made solely by the examination of logging information generated and stored by IT resources, as it is highly unlikely that these resources have any way of automatically discerning the contents of someone’s personally held collection of physical media or determining the end use of the material downloaded.

Copyright infringement is a wholly civil matter. The burden falls completely on the copyright holder to enforce their rights, at their own, not the public’s expense.

Please refrain from burdening public law enforcement with matters of non-criminal conduct. Such reports are frivolous and wastes their valuable time along with public tax dollars.

How the University wishes to deal with the conduct of members of the Clemson community on the matter of p2p file sharing and associated civil legal matters is the perogative of the policy making process within the University, but it should not involve outside law enforcement when no criminal conduct has occured.

I would suggest that you review this entire matter with the University’s counsel before making any further policy statements or submitting any reports to law enforcement agencies.

–TurboGeek