This fall, Provost John Etchemendy distributed a revised Copyright Reminder that is intended to update and remind the University community of the applicability of copyright law at an academic institution like Stanford.
File-Sharing of Copyrighted Content
While file-sharing technology is revolutionizing our ability to share photos, class projects and jointly develop software, file-sharing of copyrighted content without the permission of copyright owners is both unlawful and prohibited by University policy.
Using file-sharing services to upload (give) or download (take) copyrighted content without permission, such as music, movies, TV programs, software, books or video games, puts both you and the University at risk.
This Copyright Reminder includes an expanded section on unlawful file-sharing and its potential consequences at Stanford, as well as through civil and criminal actions. ASSU is partnering for the second year with Yahoo! Music and iTunes to provide students legal and inexpensive access to music. Please visit http://mymusic.stanford.edu/ for more information.
Use of Academic Works in Electronic Coursepacks
In addition to concerns about unlawful access to entertainment content, academic publishers are growing increasingly concerned about the use of academic works in electronic coursepacks without permission.
Stanford University encourages faculty and staff to employ Stanford's CourseWork software, which allows the posting of materials only after a review of copyright status is undertaken. CourseWork also helps faculty and staff take advantage of content that is legally available through Stanford or through the Internet at large.
Stanford University Libraries have secured licenses to tens of thousands of online works, and many other works are available electronically to the public through licenses, such as Creative Commons licenses. There are also many excellent digitization projects that are making public domain content available online, such as Project Gutenberg, The Internet Public Library and the full-view search of Google Books.
Nonetheless, for works that are still subject to copyright protection and not already available through license, faculty, staff and students must respect copyright law in posting or distributing this content.
For a complete version of the Provost's Copyright Reminder for 2006 in PDF format see:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/provost/news/copyright2006.pdf
For the 2006 Copyright Reminder and previous Stanford Copyright Reminders, see:
http://library.stanford.edu/libraries_collections/copyright_reminders/index.html
