The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 is a federal law that is designed to protect copyright holders from online theft — that is, from the unlawful reproduction or distribution of their works. The DMCA covers music, movies, text and anything that is copyrighted. More importantly, the law involves you, because there is a good chance you might be breaking the law, even if you are not aware that you are. DMCA violations may carry heavy civil and criminal penalties. For example, civil penalties include damages and legal fees. The minimum fine is $750 per downloaded file. Criminal penalties, even for first-time offenders, can be stiff: up to $250,000 in fines and five years in prison.

Many of the cases that UIT handles, violators claim to be unaware that they were distributing copyrighted works across the WWU network. This is due to the design of file-sharing programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, BitTorrent and others. These programs can automatically make your computer act like a server, causing copyrighted materials to be made available from your computer without your knowledge.

If you have copyrighted material on your computer and need assistance removing it, call the UIT Help Desk at (573)592-4224.
For additional information regarding the DMCA, visit the Music United Web site.

http://www.musicunited.org