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Teacher Fired for P2P Lecture
An anonymous reader writes "A teacher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, was forced to resign after a talk about P2P networks. You can read his side of the story on his blog." From the article: "The day before the conference, the Dean (pressured by the Spanish Recording Industry Association 'Promusicae' as I found out later, and he recognized himself in a quote to the national newspaper El Pais, and even the Motion Picture Association of America, as another newspaper quotes) tried to stop it by denying permission to use the scheduled venue. So I scheduled a second one, and that was denied again. And a third time. Finally I gave the conference on the university cafeteria, for 5 hours, in front of 150 people." Commentary on this story at BoingBoing as well.
...he should have ended it with "I'll probably be fired for this, so each of you go tell everybody you know." Or something to that effect.
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I just don't get it. Why should talking about P2P networks be considered illegal, and why was he forbidden in the first place? Of course, after being forbidden once, he should have fought with the authorities and argued his case until he got permission, not ignored them and gone on to speak.
This guy goes out to talk about the legal uses of P2P networks, and the recording industry gets him fired. How exactly do they expect to convince people to buy their products rather than downloading them, if they do this sort of thing?
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The Director called me and first asked me to remove any link to the university from my website, and also to "hide" the fact that I was teaching there. Then he told me about the pressures and threats he and the Program received (to be subjected to software licenses inspection, copyright violations inspections, or anything that may damage them). Obviously I had to resign to save his job (and everybody else's at the Masters Program). So I did.
I'm not trying to say what happened was at all right, but it does not help the argument to start stories with the claim that he was fired. Fudging the little facts to get attention always in the long run will be held against you, and your side will not be taken as seriously.
Also, one should remember that this teacher was not approved to give the lecture and decided to go without permission and give it in the cafeteria. This would be grounds for inspecting someones future at most companies/universities.
Once again, I think what happened was a shame, but I also think that ignoring these facts is just unacceptable.
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Being pressured, however, may have have had something to do with it.
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nobody expects the Spanish (Recording Industry Association) inquisition!
What I find unbelievable is this whole "P2P is illegal" thing.
Certain uses of P2P technology, which involves sharing of copywrited material is indeed illegal. However, there is nothing illegal about P2P technology in and of itself.
There are large corporations out there that are working to build legitimate P2P applications for the benefit of the general public.
Where's the disconnect?
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The fact that a university would try to stop such a lecture is beyond the pale. These are supposed to be institutions of academic freedom, not shills for the recording industry. It's a dark day for academia when cowardly administrators pull stunts like this.
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If he'd been a tenured professor, he wouldn't have been under as much personal pressure to resign but that wouldn't have stopped his department from being "audited" to death by the industry, and he might still have chosen to resign to "take one for the team."
I hope there's an investigation into the outside pressure:
Either there is reason for department to be audited or it shouldn't be, but the topics of discussion in the lectures should NOT be a determining factor, and his resignation should NOT change whether or not any audits proceed. The fact that his resignation changed that outcome means it's political, and as such there needs to be an investigation, so this kind of thing doesn't happen again.
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First, it would have cost the university a software audit. "Who cares?" you say. This would undoubtedly turn up something on someone's machine that was illegal, and the university would be fined. Then the university would make damn sure that this guy never worked anywhere in academia ever again.
So, if you are prepared to deal with this sort of thing, it's not a big deal. Stand up for your rights. But, unless you want to lose your job anyway and then not get hired elsewhere, it's best to resign.
Unfortunately, as previous posters have noted, that's the way it works in academia.
IANAL, but in most countries if you are forced into a position where you feel incorrectly pressured to resign, and you do resign, that is still grounds for an unfair dismissal case. He was effectively fired by the comments that were presented to him.
However, I do agree with some people that it would have been a clearer argument if he waited longer for the situation to develop more and made proper recordings of phone calls "discussing his problematic situation".
I can't believe how quickly these creatures have crawled from beneath the bridges and translated their near-unintelligble grunts to paper.
Mods, please mark "Troll" to anyone who posts anything like:
"He's a wuss, he backed down and quit."
or
"He resigned, he didn't get fired. TFA != Story Title"
Half-truth: He resigned.
Complete truth: He was forced to resign, and denounced by the university. The university said, "he only taught a few classes," when he'd been teaching full-time for 5 years!
This is BS, and censorship at its worst. I'm working on becoming a Computer Science professor, and this article makes me glad I don't live in Spain. Does anyone remember this from a few weeks ago? The RIAA wants just as much control over U.S. universities as the Spanish equivalent already has over theirs.
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A university isn't the same as a business. The notion of academic freedom is central to a university, and the fact that a group of record companies could pressure a dean in this way shows that these guys have taken upon themselves far too much power. It was wrong, it was a violation of the notions of academic freedom, and I think the time is coming when we better sit down and figure out just how much power we want RIAA and its clones elsewhere in the world to have.
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Could someone host his p2p lecture as worldwide video conferencing thing? I quite interested in what it all was about
Relase it via bittorrent. Nothing like using a P2P network to prove the point.
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I only teach part-time, but I definitely make use of class time to push P2P on the students and tell them that it is their responsibility to get out there and share as much as they can. I find the students are eager to discuss the issue.
I see it as a personal obligation to get people to use P2P, especially the ones that are scared of it. Now, I don't publicly encourage them to violate copyright in the sense that I direct them to sites like eTree and Knoppix, but I do use class time to teach them how to set up BitTorrent to work with TOR and discuss the merits of clients like Mute and GNUnet.
To me, this is just following the trend. The RIAA, MPAA and BSA are all into encouraging shools to spend more time on the topic of intellectual property so teachers should feel obliged to take them up on it and use class time to discuss these topics at length.
I think schools should spend a whole day each week doing nothing but discussing P2P and exchanging examples of the right way to share. The more time devoted to the topic, the better.
Whether he resigned or was fired, or was pressured to resign is another matter. He was censored in his own university, for God's sake!
His lecture wasn't denied twice, and if he was fired over it he'd have an open and shut wrongful termination suit, assuming that they have such a thing in Spain. His *request for a venue* was denied twice. So he gave the lecture in a place where he didn't have to ask for permission. As a trivial example, you get turned down twice trying to reserve a school field for your baseball game. So you have it at the next door park instead, where you don't have to ask.
Just because it is _predictable_ does not make it legitimate. If he worked for Transglobal Conglomerates, the firing would be perfectly legit.
The proud history of universities is that they are supposed to be places for the sharing of information, not places for censorship. A university is generally considered to be part of a public trust of information, unlike a privately held for profit corporation. The charter of a university is usually not-for-profit and to spread and increase knowledge.
Good universities have professors who say scandalous things and - if they are well thought out - keep their jobs (usually unless they are personally attacking more senior faculty). By going ahead and getting forced to resign, I believe he did exactly what he intended - proved his university isn't interested in education and doesn't deserve to exist. (Unless of course they come back and remedy it)
Furthermore it is part of the mandate of a professor to do things like this - they are supposed to be making the world a better place, and they have a burden to that - the same way a doctor is supposed to help people even if they work for a corporation. They have BOTH responsibilities.
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*sigh*
There's a lot of comments here about how he should have gotten tenure, spoke to a union, in the U.S pressured resignation == firing, in the U.S. pressured resignation != firing, etc. How about someone from Spain actually chiming in? Is there a tenure system in Spanish universities? Teacher's union?
I live in Spain. It's generally pretty cool, but one thing I really don't like about it is that there isn't the freedom of speech here that there is in the rest of Europe.
Politicians here sometimes sue members of the public for slander or libel. The last president did it (aznar). I like the UK, where you can happily calll tony blair a liar and not worry he's going to try to sue you for it!
Interesting how one of the pressure tactics were the license audits. Propriatary vendors obviously have the right to do this, but it appears to have been a source of great leverage in silencing critics.
Also interesting, the teacher was only going to share his opinion on why using P2P may be legal. In America at least we are generally pretty protective of the right to debate ideas. The MPAA and its spanish counterparts though appear to be opposed to this concept.
If you're going to be an academic institution it would seem prudent to move away from software and support of groups that are unwilling to even allow different opinions to be expressed on a college compus about a topic. We used to call that type of exchange education.
Also, one should remember that this teacher was not approved to give the lecture and decided to go without permission and give it in the cafeteria. This would be grounds for inspecting someones future at most companies/universities.
At companies, yes. At universities, no.
In academia, knowledge moves forward as we argue for competing viewpoints. Universities can't function properly unless it's possible to argue for unpopular viewpoints without fear of reprisal. This is one of the major differences between academia and the business world.
I'm a faculty member myself. If I choose to stand up in a cafeteria and speak my mind on any subject I please, that is my right. I'm not required or expected to obtain anybody's approval or permission. The rules are that I can't be fired for this. If you disagree with my viewpoint, then the correct response is to use your own freedom to state your dissent.
Most folks in academia, both faculty and administration, understand this, agree with it strongly as a value, and go to considerable lengths to safeguard this ability. Those safeguards grossly broke down in this case.
The talk was outside the cafeteria and without microphones, so people were quite packed around Jorge, sitting on the floor, in order to hear what he was saying (cafeterias tend to be noisy places).
You can see some photos of the people here .
Teach them how to write P2P systems.
I know the class below me at Edinburgh Uni had a project which involved writing thier own P2P app.
P2P Apps are a great learning experience in socket programming, distributed systems, threading and many other skills that do transfer into other areas.
However if this stuff doesn't relate to your major then i fail to see why it should be taught. Regardless of how paradigm-shifting some people think p2p is - it's just a new way to use an old technology. And unless you study CS, Law, or some relevant social science then it's not what you (or your government) are paying for you to go to uni for.
I gave an impromptu lecture last week--to a group of high school students--about the recording industry. It went something like this:
." Then I went into a good 40 minute description of the business practices of that industry. The exploitation, the loophole payola, the underhanded deals. I went to show them on the board how if a major record label signed their band, how they could sell a million records and still not make any money themselves. To be fair, I also pointed out that most bands don't sell many recordings, and how the industry loses money on them.
"Mr. Highgate, is sharing music files on the Internet wrong?"
"Well, students, it's illegal. And, according to the recording industry of America, it takes money away from recording artists."
"Yes, but is it wrong?"
"Let me tell you about the business practices of the recording industry . .
"Is it wrong?" I concluded. "Well, student's, that's a moral decision you'll have to make on your own. This is a civics class. All I'm going to tell you is that it's not legal, and you'd be insanely stupid to do it using the school's computers."
Though if anyone in the administration told me not to discuss this topic, I would probably comply. Just because I don't like the RIAA doesn't mean I'd be willing to martyr myself for it.
The Internet is generally stupid
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