Like many students, Duncan had used post-Napster file-sharing applications like Morpheus to download plenty of songs before. But the band Incubus' "Wish You Were Here" was one song too many when the University received a copyright infringement complaint from Sony Music.
Director of System Security Jeanne Smythe said Duncan's case is not the first. Smythe receives at least one letter a week from the record industry citing copyright infringement by UNC students. Often the letters contain multiple names.
"We don't search out people for violations," Smythe said. "We only (disconnect) a student if they are overwhelming the system or we receive a complaint from the (copyright owner)."
After Smythe receives a formal complaint, her office follows the University's copyright policy. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects universities from prosecution if they have a policy that punishes students for repeatedly infringing copyrighted works. Students sign a copy of UNC's policy when they register for an Onyen e-mail account.
Students' computers are disconnected from the network when they violate the policy for the first time, but their account is still enabled, allowing them to use other computers to check e-mail and grades.
They are then contacted by the e-mail postmaster to discuss the complaint and delete the illegal material. Before they are allowed back on the network, students must sign a pledge to not download or distribute copyrighted material again.
In most cases, students are reconnected to the network within a couple days. But if caught again, repeat offenders might face consequences from the Honor Court. So far this year no cases have reached the Honor Court, Smythe said. "We want people to abide by the law. File sharing is allowable because it can be used for perfectly valid uses, but it can also be used to infringe copyright."
Not only are some forms of file sharing illegal, but they also can limit other users' ability to access the system, Smythe said.
Campus residents' abundant use of the file-sharing applications to download digital music caused network officials in September to implement rate limiting on the UNC computer system. Director of Network Communications Jim Gogan said two-thirds of network traffic is from music-swapping services.
