Congress to Fight Piracy with Education Funds

Nomihn0 writes "The RIAA has announced that the House Education and Labor committee is considering an amendment, HR1689, to the Higher Education Act of 1965. The proposal would allocate federal education funds to anti-piracy measures on college campuses. Most concerning is the bill's wording. It's claimed that the proposal would 'save telecommunications bandwidth costs.' In other words, the government will fund private packet filtering and preferential bandwidth allocation. 'The Higher Education Act (HEA) generally allows schools to spend the money they receive only on certain prescribed areas such as financial aid grants and Pell loans. The new bill would allow that money to be used for more things, but does not contain a request for additional funding. Whether schools would be interested in using a limited pool of federal money to police student file-swapping remains to be seen.'"

Comments

Students can't read, helps rap industry.

[CogDissident]

Anyone noticing that the RIAA and their associated music companies (keep in mind that their name is supposed to be hated, we're not supposed to hate sony/universal/emi and warner) tend to do things to piss off the most educated people, while the least educated don't notice? Also notice that the least educated people tend to listen to rap "music", and the associated pop music that these companies churn out? Personally, I'm sure that some executive is thinking, somewhere, that having a less educated country means more people to listen to their music. Besides the fact that they're using someone else's money to fight their battles for them.

Re:Students can't read, helps rap industry.

[Poppler]

Also notice that the least educated people tend to listen to rap "music", and the associated pop music that these companies churn out? I also notice that quite a few educated people listen to pop music as well - it's just a form of pop that's more acceptable in their social circles. Of coarse, that doesn't stop them from condescending to people with less politically correct tastes.

So instead of...

[cyphercell]

... financing education we will spend tax dollars on policing students, in order to save a dying industry? This is heavily F'd up, pell grants and loans don't pay for that much as it is. This deal must be great for the RIAA, less students receive funding to get into school (less piracy), and that money is spent harrassing those that can still afford to get there. Once again our tax dollars are going to work for industry rather than the people.

Re:So instead of...

[El Torico]

Here is the website of the Congresstoady who sponsored this bill.

This is ridiculous

[Paulrothrock]

Kids will not listen to the federal government telling them not to steal music. They're used to "music as commodity." In fact, I'd say most of the kids in college today never used a computer without knowing you could get "free" music off of it. To them, this is like the federal government telling people to stop using cell phones because landlines are losing money.

The content industry needs to pull its head out of its ass. Times have changed. Your monopoly and ridiculous, antiquated system of telling people who gets what music or movies where is untenable in this day and age. Now that people have the ability to get the content they want from wherever it's produced, they'll do it. Why can't I buy Dr. Who from iTunes the day after it's released? I'd gladly do it. But because of an agreement that was struck decades ago, I have to wait for a butchered version to show up on Sci Fi if I want to get it legally. Why should Australians have to wait a year to get BSG on their TVs?

The content producers seem to have chosen to sue their fans rather than provide them with the content they want. And if they want too long, other, independent, content providers are going to eat their lunch.

(I know I'll get modded insightful, but I don't understand why. I'm just pointing out the obvious.)

Common carrier.

[failure-man]

"Whether schools would be interested in using a limited pool of federal money to police student file-swapping remains to be seen."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the school "is your ISP", and therefore has common-carrier status. Why would they want to go to the trouble of censoring you? They would become liable for mistakes in doing so.

The title says all you need to know

[zappepcs]

"Congress to Fight Piracy with Education Funds"

Why is Congress fighting anything? They are a legislative branch, not a law enforcement branch! Yes, sure, they have to be informed to create appropriate legislative action, but NO NEW LAWS are required.

Federal financial aid to educational institutions should not be messed with to "fight piracy"

If they want to fight piracy, authorize some more money. When new taxes are levied to 'fight piracy' perhaps joe public will pay attention. Additionally, like the war on drugs, this war on piracy is misguided at best.

Copyright laws seem to be working just fine for everyone but the **AA. Why is that? This is what Congress should be doing; asking why the **AA are having so much trouble when other people are not.

Re:It makes sense

[beakerMeep]

Even if what you said is true, which I highly doubt (since from what I understand packet filtering and QoS is more expensive to run than adding bandwidth, and end to end encryption would defeat it I would think), who is to say the money saved from such an endeavor will go back into the Pell grants and the like?

Technical arguments aside, taking money away from student loans to finance this seems risky at best. If there is no clause that requires accounting of the money saved, and it's redirecting back towards student loans, this is certainly a Bad Investment(tm).

That also doesnt even begin touch on how it's morally wrong to use education money for the private interests of copyright holders.