Antipiracy and Copyright Laws
Copyrighted works may include but are not limited to: software, music, periodicals, books, text, videos, movies, paintings, photographs and imagery of any kind, works of art, proof of concepts and reproductions of works by an authorized entity.
A copyright gives the holder of the copyright exclusive rights to ownership and distribution of the copyrighted work. Copyrights are internationally recognized so that if a copyrighted work is duplicated or distributed, even if it is from another country, without the expressed permission of the Copyright holder then legal retribution may be sought against those violating Copyright Law.
The FBI investigates Copyright Law violations regularly and prosecutions can lead to either jail time, financial retribution or a combination of the two. One common violation that is problematic for Universities is that of file sharing, specifically copyrighted music and movies. Duplication in itself is not necessarily illegal as long as it is for personal use of the license holder of the original material, however, when that duplication is posted to the internet or reproduced for the purpose of distribution the law is broken.
The University of Texas at Arlington expects that all faculty, staff and students abide by Copyright Law and consult Title 17 and the Digital Millennium Act should there be any questions on how this law applies to their actions.
Use of copyrighted and licensed materials must be administered in conformance with federal and state law and The University of Texas System Regents Rules.
It is the policy of UT Arlington and The University of Texas System and its component institutions to follow the United States Copyright Law of 1976, as amended, (Title 17, United States Code, hereinafter, the "Copyright Act"). Accordingly, all faculty, staff and students of The University of Texas at Arlington should follow policy guidelines. Please review the following links for more information.