Who enforces copyright on campus?
Question
If there is a violation of SU's copyright policy who is responsible for enforcing it? In other words who notifies the offender and what are the consequences of the violation?
Response
As our disclaimer above makes plain, the SU copyright service does not grant permissions or offer legal advice. It might also say, we don't police copyright compliance either. There is no policy per se at SU regarding "enforcing" copyright compliance, or "punishing" for copyright infringement, especially for library and classroom use.
Given the recent increases in MP3 theft and unauthorized file-sharing, the University is begining to take a harder look at this. David Pajak of Risk Management provides one angle below in response to your inquiry. More broadly, I'd say the nature of the copyright incident plays a large measure in what the response is likely to be. Compliance is largely voluntary from an "enforcement" perspective, however the University expects users to comply with the law and not infringe on copyright owner's exclusive rights.
Problems that may arise will usually come from infringement where external parties, commercial enterprises notably, see their licensed or trademarked product misused. In most cases, SU at whatever the appropriate level, will deal with the person(s) responsible for infringement and let the aggrieved commercial party know what action has been taken.
With electronic library resources, where anonymity of use is a right granted by SUL policy, identifying an infringer who misuses licensed resources remains problematic. All we can really do is let the commercial licensee know we've stopped the infringement but the person responsible is likely to remain anonymous. An area for further exploration no doubt.
