Pirating is bad, mm’kay?

Remember the intellectual property notice you had to click in your e-Portfolio freshman year? It’s back. From an all-campus e-mail:

As of September 24th, a change will have been made to your EPortfolio. When you log in you will see (or may have already seen) a statement regarding Intellectual Property which you are asked to read and then indicate your acceptance. We are asking you to do this as part of a larger campaign to create awareness of intellectual property and copyright laws in general, and of the specific legal restrictions that apply to music and video that is not in the public domain.

As part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), which was passed by Congress in August, universities need to remind students annually that illegal file-sharing is punishable by law. They must also certify to the Secretary of Education that they have developed plans to “effectively combat” illegal file-sharing (primarily bandwidth shaping and/or network usage metering) and are required to provide alternatives to illegal file-sharing “to the extent practicable.”

For more information about the HEOA, see Ravi’s blog. Wes has also set up a new Intellectual Property site.