Legal File-Sharing Options at UC Merced
Legal Alternatives
UC Merced faculty, staff, and students can legally download music, videos, and software from any number of companies now offering such services. Many sites sell individual songs for less than a dollar and whole albums at a reasonable discount. Students who are interested in legally playing digital music and video on their computers should consider some of the legal alternatives listed below.
Why Should I Use Legal Services?
Think your last credit card statement was bad? Try explaining a $17,500 charge for one new CD to your parents.
If the recording industry catches you illegally file-sharing copyrighted music and movies, you can face damages that range from $750-$150,000 per song. Right now, the industry is randomly monitoring networks throughout the nation - they have filed over 700 lawsuits so far. The lawsuits indiscriminately target those who share musical content - from 12 year-olds to college students to grandmothers. UC Merced cannot protect you and has no liability in these cases. Instead, you - or your parents - will end up paying the price.
In the spring of 2005, students at 33 colleges and universities were slapped with music industry lawsuits for illegally sharing copyrighted songs. In previous music industry lawsuits for illegal file-sharing, four college students and their parents - at Princeton, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Michigan Tech - were each forced to pay $17,500 in fines.
Regardless of whether or not you have the cash, your parents may be liable to pay the entire fine - and claiming youth or ignorance won't work. In New York, the mother of a 12-year-old girl who was charged with illegally uploading music files, was forced to pay $2,000 in fines.
No matter how you feel about file-sharing, you need to be aware that the recording industry and other copyright holders are cracking down and randomly monitoring networks across the country.
To learn more: http://www.ucop.edu/irc/policy/copyright.html
Music
Movies/TV
Other Resources
UC Merced does not endorse these sites or their content and has posted them only as examples of legal places from which to purchase and/or download digital files.
Looking for help?
We offer a number of tutorials and FAQs available in the Guides & FAQs section.
If you have any questions, problems, or comments, please contact the IT Help Desk via email at helpdesk@ucmerced.edu, via phone at 209.228.HELP (4357), or visit them in the Classroom and Office Building room 132A.