Copyright Information


What Happens at an AUP Meeting?

Many students want to know what happens when you are accused of violating copyright. The first time you are accused, you must meet with a member of the ITS-Postmasters staff. (For a full description of what happens when a complaint is filed, please click here.) Below is an interview with Tim Cline, a staff member who conducts these meetings on a regular basis.



How do you usually conduct these meetings? I give the student a copy of this [the text of the full complaint against them by the reporting agency, as well as an agreement to remove access to the file(s)], and I keep a copy for myself to look at and I give a copy to my witness. I also give the student two copies of a standard form we use when conducting our AUP meetings. I'll introduce myself, tell them who I am, what I'm doing, and then the AUP meeting usually proceeds like this.[…]

I do what I can to put their mind at ease, and make some jokes. For example, I'll say 'you're not the first student this has ever happened to', or 'Don't worry, I didn't really call your mom….' And then I'll say that this is a copy of the complaint that was sent to the individual […] here at the University who represents the University in issues pertaining to copyright violation.

Then I'll say that the purpose of this meeting is just to bring this complaint to your attention and see if you can shed any light on it. Then I'll draw their attention to the actual allegation […]. I'll say, the allegation here is that on IP address [here he reads IP out loud] at the time and date indicated, these individuals or this company alleges that a piece of copyrighted material [was found at the IP address indicated on the complaint] and that the material as available for distribution over the network. […]

Then I'll stop, and I'll say, were you aware that, at the time and date indicated, you had this file on your computer, and that it was available for sharing on the network. At that point, depending on how they respond, I'll respond in kind. If they say, well yea, I did have it, I'll say [make a joke to lighten the situation]. If they say, well gosh, I knew I had this file on my computer, but I wasn't aware it was available for sharing, I'll say that […] I'm just here to remind you that when you signed up your computer to use our network, you agreed to abide by our policies. One of those policies was that you would be responsible for the use of your computer. Another one of those policies you agreed to abide by is the copyright policy, and the purpose of this meeting is just to remind you of what that policy is.

I say at that point, the policy really has two parts to it. If you're in possession of a piece of copyrighted materials, you must be able to prove that you're in lawful or rightful possession of it. I'll say that usually this means that you need to be in rightful possession of the original media - the CDROM or DVD - that it came on. Then I'll say even if you are in rightful possession of this material, like you bought it at the mall, you can't put it on your computer in such a way that it can be shared over the network. Copyright means you don't have the rights to distribute copies of it, these guys do, and that's why these guys come down on us like a ton of bricks, because obviously if [someone] can connect to your computer and make copies of stuff like this, nobody […] would ever pay money for it.

The rest of the meeting goes like this. We tell them what the University does when they get a notification like this, which is that we prevent the computer in question from accessing the network until we have a chance to talk to the student about the incident, the reason being is that UNC can get sued for big bucks if we don't act in a timely fashion. We tell the student that what they must do to regain access is delete the file(s) in question, and then we also hand out a little piece of friendly advice. We say that you might want to think about uninstalling the filesharing software that was used to distribute the [file], and here we try to tread carefully. We say it's not illegal to use the filesharing software anymore than it's illegal to possess a photocopier. But you can't take a photocopier, copy a copyrighted book that you've borrowed, and pass it out to passersby, and that's the analogy of what you've been accused of here.

We also emphasize at this point that this is a first-time incident, and that we don't believe in busting heads for first-time incidents. We emphasize that nothing is going on anyone's permanent record and that the only people who know about the incident are in the room with the student, plus maybe a staff member on the Security team, who will help us restore access. But if there is a 2nd incident, the consequences are much greater. Should there be a second incident, we don't have any discretion about how to proceed. We have to report the incident to the Dean of Students as an Honor Code violation. We emphasize that this is one of our least favorite things to do, and that one way the student can insure that no second incident occurs is to uninstall the file-sharing software.

Depending on the reaction of the student, we say some other things. If they want help from the walk-in services, we can have somebody sit down with them and have them go thru the computer and help delete the copyrighted files mentioned in the complaint and uninstall the filesharing software. We do emphasize that it's the student's responsibility to give the final say-so, to give us their word that they will comply with the policy (to assure us that they've gone through their computer and removed any copyrighted materials that they do not rightfully possess and also that they've made a decision as to whether to uninstall file-sharing software).

So at the end of the meeting, we have them sign and date a copy of the form, I give them one copy and I tell them we will destroy our copy in three years, as per state law. They're welcome to do whatever they want to with their copy. We do emphasize that this is a first incident, and that for a first incident, nothing comes of it, nothing will go on the permanent record, we're not going to call anybody's probation officer. Should there be a second incident, however, we don't have any discretion in the matter, we have to report it to the Dean of Students as a honor court violation.

Once we've had the meeting, and the student has given me their word that they've taken care of matters as per our discussion and will comply with policy, I tell the student that I will request that access be restored and that they should have access again in 24 hours.. We also ask the student if they have any questions before they leave.

Q: Can students be identified from the logs?
A: The complaints sent to us from the various agencies - RIAA, MPAA, etc-only contain the IP on which the offending material is found. While we're talking to the student about this being a first-time incident, one thing we try to do to put their minds at ease is to tell them that the media companies involved do not know the identities of the students and that UNC does not divulge this info.

Q: Can the students be identified from the paperwork?
A: Publicly identified from the paperwork, no. To view the particular Remedy ticket, you need either to be 1) the student, which means you know the password to the account, or 2) a member of ITS with certain privileges. All of these "privileged" positions are what's known as "positions of trust". If you were found giving out info about a student, for example, you could get fired. And beyond that, even though the Remedy tickets can be viewed by certain staff members, you have to be somewhat sophisticated to know what to look for in the logs. The logs can be locked, but we've had discussions and decided not to lock most of them. There have been some that I've locked, but those are the ones where I don't feel comfortable having confidential information out there. The tickets that have been locked typically involved something greater than a copyright violation - maybe an allegation involving obscenity or threats of physical violence against someone.


Copyright 2005 S. Adair Thaxton - Reproduce, Redistribute, But Please Cite!