Copyright Infringement Compliance Plan

Introduction

In accordance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008, Florida National University has developed and implemented a plan to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of material, the copyright in and to which may be owned by a third party, by users of the institution’s network without unduly interfering with the educational and research use of the network.

The following plan contains or addresses:

1. The use of technology-based deterrents;
2. An educational component regarding appropriate and inappropriate use of copyrighted materials;
3. A description of the institution’s policy and procedures for handling copyright infringement; and
4. A required periodic review of the plan.

Use of Technology-Based Deterrents

Florida National University uses a number of technical means to monitor peer-to-peer file sharing on its network. Information that is maintained includes records of peer-to-peer file sharing sessions of all Faculty, Staff and Students. This information includes source and destination information, usernames, files being transferred, and information on the peer-to-peer application being used. When peer-to-peer traffic is observed on the network the file being transferred is identified and compared against an extensive database of known content (Movies, TV shows, Music, Software, etc.) that is subject to a claim of copyright protection. If the content is identified as being protected, the web browser of the computer in question will be redirected to an Anti-Piracy Information page where the end user will be informed that they are uploading or downloading protected material. The Anti-Piracy notice will provide the end user with examples of the works infringed and inform them of legal means to download such content.

In addition, application firewalls are enabled for all zones, which trigger general monitoring at three campus firewalls. The firewall has a signature group of common peer-to-peer apps and as new signatures are introduced, they are added to this group. These firewalls generate alerts that show up in logs, which are monitored on the firewall log viewer and via the GMS portal.