Higher Education Committee Releases Report on P2P
djeaux writes "The Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities has released a "Background Discussion of Copyright Law and Potential Liability for Students Engaged in P2P File Sharing on University Networks." The Joint Committee includes representatives from a number of universities, education groups, entertainment industry representatives, and the presidents of RIAA & MPAA. The paper provides an overview of copyright law relating to on-campus P2P file sharing and concludes that "(c)olleges and universities generally do not have a legal duty to control students' private conduct. Students therefore should not assume that their college or university will accept liability for them or provide them with legal representation." The report was distributed to presidents of all institutions that are members of the American Council on Education on Friday, August 8."
IAALS.
Allowing others to make digital copies of music, pictures, movies, books, or any other form of data for which you do not hold the copyright to is illegal.
If you had respected this from the beginning, the DMCA, et al. would have never even been conceived.
Food for thought.
As a counter question, why should Universities act as legal council and protection for their students when their students do illegal things? My University is not going to bail me out if I kill someone or steal a car, so i don't expect them to protect me if I violate someone else's copyright.
This report makes perfect sense, what doesn't is the fact that it took so many high paid people so many hours to do it.
Finkployd
Now, if the universities aren't liabe for the actions of their students, are they still obligated to provide information about the actions of said students? I don't know if the article covered that or not.
No statement is true, not even this one.
Don't do that. How will we make the RIAA and MPAA spend all their money and go bankrupt if we get rid of these laws that make them want to sue everyone and their kitten?
Make more copyright laws like the DMCA and more encrypted P2P nets.. encourage sharing large amount of data, its even better if the data contains nothing usable but tip off any type of automated crawling system, and play the RIAA/MPAA's game until they lose. They can't sue everyone, but I wanna see them try.
Your web page still doesn't take a solid stance that copyright is always and was always evil. It should be removed through a consitutional amendment, even after the law has been repealed.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
And enforce the hell out of it during that time.
And at the end of that time, it becomes public domain.
So if you want the latest stuff, pay. We are trying to reward the guys that actually *do* something, not guys that sit on their arse milking work they did seven years ago. Would you hire an employee who expects to remain on the payroll because he did something seven years ago? I thought copyright was to reward the artist for creating, not reward some bozo for sitting on things so nobody else can use it. Excessive copyright time limits only encourage monopolies and extortion, not creativity.
I think a lot of this civil disobedience we are seeing today is a result of this one-sided law we are seeing passed - and a lot of people are getting pissed. They will take it for only so long before we have another Boston Tea Party.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Are underage students who are living on a high school campus doing P2P responsible for their own actions or does that responsibility / liability fall to the school?
And, of course lets not forget that these fictitious entities collect millions from lawsuits, while complaining when real persons try to do the same thing.
How can a person possible learn responsibility when the most powerful entities in the world do not take a responsibility? How can we be patriotic American that believe in democracy and capitalism, when some of the largest economies in the world are non-transparent command economies?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"(c)olleges and universities generally do not have a legal duty to control students' private conduct. Students therefore should not assume that their college or university will accept liability for them or provide them with legal representation"
Why this outcome? If schools don't have to control students private conduct, it means students that schools can't control what they share, what p2p networks they connect.
Are **AA's appeals asking for student data worthless? Assumed that a school doesn't have control over my actions, they don't have to provide any information to them if they ask for it.
Am I wrong?
They've declared war on the entire high tech community, whether we share files or not. Fuck 'em... or more to the point, let's fuck them up.
If you must have your Britney fix, buy from used record stores.
However, to make the point that the RIAA label declining sales is due to their own behavior and the crap they are putting out, better buy from independent artists. That's one place to find some, check my sig for another.
If it isn't played on FM and not available in record stores, it's probably from non-RIAA label sources, to make sure, check any artist you're thinking of buying at RIAA Radar.
If RIAA label sales drop by 5% and indie label and musician sales double, it's all over for the labels... the excuses about PIRACY!!! will no longer play with. . . the people in the multinationals major label CEOs report to.
If being on a RIAA label is shown to be a negative as far as making money goes... the rush for the exits will start and the RIAA won't be able to afford lobbyist teams anymore.
Leaving the MPAA out there all by itself, given that the RIAA won't be around to play bad cop anymore. That's the next war.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I guess we should shut the whole Internet down - just to be sure.
If you really want to distribute legal files, use another method - FTP server, web server, whatever.
What if he wants to let other users to share their legal files? He just don't have a chance to check everyone.
What if I want to invite to my child's birthday party other classmates with their parents, should I ask them to bring the papers from the police that they are not criminals or should I just shut the whole party down?
You are wrong. Everyone is responsible only for own actions. If there is a law making me responsible for the other's actions - that law is anti-constitutional and can be defeated. If some organization is abusing such laws - that can be defeated. And if I cannot defeat myself against anti-constitutaional laws and actions - I should leave the country where the constitution is not more than a piece of paper.
BTW, it's exactly what I did right after 9/11. The Canadian winter might be colder, but at least my constitutional rights are protected better. Even if I am not a Canadian (yet).
Less is more !