Fudan loses access to academic database (2)

"The articles in the database are only supposed to be used for research," said an employee at CNKI, a Chinese Academic Database. "No one can read 200 articles in one hour. Excessive downloads can threaten the database provider's intellectual property because the downloader may be trying to steal and sell the articles."

Fudan University's library requires students to limit downloads to fewer than 100 articles an hour to avoid losing access, according to its website.

Excessive downloading is not uncommon at Fudan University. For the ACS database alone, the university has its access suspended three or four times each year, a library employee told the Global Times. "We brief freshmen on the digital library rules as soon as they come to the university," the employee said. "An announcement about the rules pops up whenever they log into the digital library, but most students just ignore it."

Many students know little about intellectual property, said Ren Haiyong, an intellectual property attorney. However, universities should not put too much blame on students because it is their responsibility to educate students about the issue. "I advise universities to teach students about intellectual property rights in their compulsory law courses," he said.