Matthew sez, “UCLA has put a weird, pointlessly restrictive warning into the desktop background of all computers in the residence halls.”
This is some warning. So much for “education” — why bother teaching UCLA students about copyright when you can just scare. Prison sentences, no less!
How about including information on understanding fair use, with particular reference to the special freedoms copyright law affords to scholars?
Or UCLA could explain how “copyrighted material” includes things like class lectures, which, one assumes, students can download without being sent to the big house.
Surely that would be more productive than this inane, shrill “warning.”
(Thanks, Matthew!)
See also: USC’s bizarre, non-legal copyright policy