Peer to Peer File Sharing

The federal Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA) establishes requirements that we must meet to insure that the rights of copyright holders are respected. This document is part of our effort to inform the GTU-Consortium community of what is required for all of us to conform to the law.

Both the Computing Resources Acceptable Use and the Wireless Networks Acceptable Use policies prohibit any copyright infringing activity on the networks we manage on behalf of the GTU-Consortium. Furthermore, all Peer to Peer (P2P) activity on the wireless networks is prohibited since this is a shared resource with limited bandwidth available.

Any student, faculty or staff member of a GTU member school who uses these networks must agree to comply with applicable policies, no matter which member school they attend. Currently, these policies apply to the networks at all GTU member schools except those located at the San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) in San Anselmo, California.

HEOA Compliance Statement

In order to comply with the requirements of the HEOA, we respond to all legitimate and properly formed notices of online copyright infringement in a timely manner. Once received, CITS investigates the notice, reviewing all available network activity records to ascertain the validity of the claim. If the notice appears valid we will suspend the network access of the computer involved until suspect data is shown to be legitimate or any infringing material is removed. In the case of a violation, a first offender can regain network access once proof of removal of such material is provided and a statement to that effect is signed. Repeat offenders may be denied all further network access and will be referred to their school for further disciplinary action.

CITS will inform the sender of the notice that either appropriate action to remove the material has been taken or that the allegation could not be verified through available network activity records. We do not provide any user identifying information to the sender of the notice unless a lawfully issued subpoena is received. In addition, we do not forward a copy of the notice to the alleged offender on behalf of the sender of the notice.

Legal File Downloading

There are many services that allow you to legally stream or download media files. A large and frequently updated listing of these is maintained by Educause, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. This listing is available here.

For further information on the issue of copyright and penalties for violating current law, please visit our Copyright Infringement Notice page.