Under section 512 of the controversial DMCA, a representative of a copyright holder can send a "takedown" notice to a university or other Internet provider, requesting that copyrighted material be removed. Anyone receiving a false notice can sue for damages and attorney's fees, but only if the sender "knowingly materially misrepresents" information. Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that portion of the DMCA gives too much leeway to copyright holders. "If you have a good-faith belief that use of the material is not authorized by the copyright holder under copyright law, that's the only standard you have to meet," Cohn said. "You can't be liable if you're wrong unless you knowingly and materially misrepresented (the information). I think the situations where there will be liability will be very small." Cohn said the RIAA's apology is the first time that an incorrect DMCA notice has become public. Peter Meszaros, head of Penn State's department of astronomy and astrophysics, said "there are strict and well-advertised guidelines" about using the department's computers, and that "infringements are reported to the central Penn State computer security office, which handles any breaches, if and when they occur." According to department policy, faculty members and graduate students may place files on the FTP site, but undergraduate students have access only with a faculty member's sponsorship. Soccio, the department's network and information systems manager, said he had been worried that the server would be yanked from the network during the middle of Penn State's final exams last week. "If our site was shut down as this was being investigated, I wouldn't even be able to have a conversation with you because (there would) be so many people in my office wanting to know when it would be back up," he said. The RIAA's notice went to the university's central computing office, which told the department to delete the material or "we will need to disable access to the machine hosting the infringing song". The central office then notified the department. Soccio said: "The swiftness of the activity the university wanted to take just around finals time scared the living daylights out of me. I'm just glad the university took my word for it that we weren't violating copyright law." Now, Soccio said, he's writing a letter to his members of Congress opposing the DMCA and will post it in the department for signatures. "I'm loath to think that our educational resources and years of valuable resources can be jeopardised just because some kid in a dorm room is downloading copyrighted material," he said. "That's not a price that society should have to pay."
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