{"id":200333,"date":"2025-10-03T22:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T22:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/200333\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T22:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T22:18:12","slug":"annual-copyright-infringement-notice-university-of-arkansas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/200333\/","title":{"rendered":"Annual Copyright Infringement Notice | University of Arkansas"},"content":{"rendered":"

In March 2025, Sony Music Entertainment sued the University of Southern California<\/a> for tens of millions of dollars over claims that the university used 170 Sony-owned \u2014 or copyrighted \u2014 songs across 283 social media posts without permission.<\/p>\n

A copyright case like this underscores the continued importance of understanding copyright infringement for students, faculty and staff in higher education.<\/p>\n

It is a violation of the U of A Code of Computing Practices<\/a>\u202ffor any user to commit copyright infringement using university resources, including campus or residence hall networks. Violation of the Code of Computing Practices is also a violation of the Code of Student Life and may result in disciplinary sanctions, as well as the suspension or revocation of the user’s access to university resources or networks (Code of Computing Practices, Sections III.E.2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Using materials in an educational context does not mean students, faculty and staff can forget about copyright. As part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act’s institutional requirements for combating unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material by network users, the university is required to provide information pertaining to copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

What is copyright infringement?<\/p>\n

Copyright infringement is the act of exercising any rights granted to the copyright owner without permission or legal authority (Title 17, United States Code, Section 106 of the Copyright Act<\/a>). Copyright owners\u202fhave exclusive rights of reproduction, adaptation, publication, performance and display.\u202fInfringement includes the reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work in the following ways:<\/p>\n


\n\tWhile downloading a file using file sharing applications.\u00a0Using the copyrighted content for any purpose may put the user in violation of policy as content of the file is distributed.\u202fDoing anything with copyrighted content on a peer-to-peer network potentially puts the user in violation of this policy. <\/p>\n


\n\tDownloading or uploading parts of a copyrighted work without authority.\u00a0Downloading or uploading large parts of a copyrighted work without authority constitutes an infringement.\u202fWillful copyright infringement can result in criminal penalties, including\u202fimprisonment of up to five years and fines of up to $250,000 per offense. <\/p>\n


\n\tDownloading and distributing copyrighted material.\u00a0Users engaged\u202fin the distribution of\u202fcopyrighted material are subject to\u202ffines.\u202fPenalties include imprisonment of up to 10\u202fyears and fines of up to $250,000.\u202fFor example, a person who lawfully acquires an authorized copy of a motion picture would be an infringer if he or she engages in the\u202fbusiness of renting it to others for an unauthorized public performance. <\/p>\n

Copyright infringement can also result in civil and criminal penalties. Anyone found liable for civil copyright infringement can be ordered to pay damages, with fines ranging from $750 to $30,000 per work infringed. For “willful” infringement, a court may award up to $150,000 per work infringed. A court can also assess costs and attorneys’ fees (Title 17, United States Code, Sections 504, 505<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Learn more about how the university combats unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material<\/a> on the IT Services website. The library also has created a copyright and fair use guide<\/a>. Furthermore, the\u202fHigher Education Opportunity Act<\/a>\u202frequires all colleges and universities to offer legal alternatives<\/a> to unauthorized downloading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In March 2025, Sony Music Entertainment sued the University of Southern California for tens of millions of dollars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[191,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-200333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-computing","9":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}