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Subject: Edupage, December 3, 2001 COMPANY BESIEGES COLLEGES WITH COPYRIGHT VIOLATION NOTICES Students who download and share copyrighted songs off the Internet risk being busted by NetPD, a London-based company that e-mails complaints of copyright infringement to colleges. Officials at the University of Maryland, College Park, and other institutions are being swamped by a tide of such notices, but response has been varied. Colleges are either ignoring the warnings or disciplining students, sometimes stripping them of their network access, subjecting them to judicial hearings, or giving them lectures about copyright law. College attorneys think that the students, not the colleges, are liable under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Furthermore, the notices lack electronic signatures and make no indication that NetPD is acting on behalf of the copyright owners--elements that are required by the copyright act, according to intellectual-property lawyer Georgia K. Harper of the University of Texas System. Tracking down and disciplining each student cited by NetPD is a long and straining process for college officials. NetPD has not followed up any of its notices with legal action thus far, and requests from colleges for clarification generally go unanswered. (Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 November 2001)
