Copyright at UVa: Employees
Information for Employees
Copyright Matters
This site has been set up to help you understand copyright laws and policies as they apply to digital materials here at UVa. We’re here to help you understand the University’s commitment to protecting lawful copyrights, the administrative process used to handle infringement cases, and ways you can protect yourself from being involved unwittingly in illegal activities.
UVa takes copyright issues very seriously. If you download a song or a movie, a computer game, or a software application in violation of its copyright, you’re not just eating up large amounts of the University’s network capacity—you are stealing. If you share those copyrighted materials with others, you’re helping them to steal, too.
Industry lawyers target individuals who violate their copyrights—as evidenced by recent lawsuits. In February 2010, Whitney Harper, a college student was ordered by a federal appeals court to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $27,750! This is $750 a track for illegally sharing 37 songs when she was a high school cheerleader. So we're not kidding when we say you could be liable to huge fines—even jail time—if you infringe.
What You Need to Know about Copyright
Page Updated: 2011-06-30
