MIT's Policies with Respect to Copyright Infringement

Unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted material violates the U.S. Copyright Act as well as MIT Policy and the MITnet Rules of Use. MIT's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), including the MITnet Rules of Use, require that members of the MIT community not share copyrighted material over the campus network in any way that violates the law. Sharing over the network includes via web pages, peer-to-peer file sharing software, email, etc. Members of the community should either have the rights or authorization from the copyright holder for any material or determine that fair use applies before it is made available or shared over the campus network.

MIT's responsibility under the law is to respond expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing. When MIT receives a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notification, it is expeditiously forwarded to the individual member of the MIT community that uses, owns, controls, or has some kind of administrative or technical responsibility for the machine indicated in the notice, when that individual can be identified based on records maintained by IS&T.

The contacted user is requested to remove or block access to all materials identified as infringing (as well as any other infringing material) and to respond to MIT's DMCA agent within 5 days of the forwarding of the takedown notice. Know what your responsibilities are if you receive a DMCA notification.

Repeat Infringements by Students

Takedown notice cases are periodically reviewed in order to determine if a possibility of repeat infringement exists. Further action regarding repeat infringement will be coordinated by the Office of Student Citizenship.

Know Your Copyright

More information on policies, rules of use, and file sharing can be found in the Resources section of this site. During Freshman orientation, information on copyright and file sharing policies is provided in the Computing at MIT sessions.