Bill Would Tie Financial Aid To Anti-Piracy Plans

theodp writes "The MPAA is applauding top Democratic politicians for introducing an anti-piracy bill that threatens the nation's colleges with the loss of a $100B a year in federal financial aid should they fail to have a technology plan to combat illegal file sharing. The proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page bill, has alarmed university officials. 'Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid — including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy,' said university officials in a letter to Congress. 'Lower-income students, those most in need of federal financial aid, would be harmed most under the entertainment industry's proposal.'"

Comments

Re:Democrats are socialists?

[nurb432]

"A true socialist believes in universal healthcare, a minimum wage that you can support a family on, maximum working week, state funded education for everyone, unions (not US style unions), equality, taxing the rich to support the poor.

Not exactly stuff the democrats seem to care about. No, not even hillary."

Ummm you have just described the hard core democrats, including Hillary.. haven't you been paying attention?

Re:Democracy?

[cliffski]

why do you assume everyone hurt by illegal filesharing is rich? does everyone at a software company who gets laid off because everyone pirated the product instead of buying it, automatically become 'rich' and 'evil' and 'corrupt' because they happen to work in an industry that produces digital content?

This bullshit that filesharing only hurts millionaires is complete and utter nonsense. It hurts everyone in an industry that produces anything that can be encoded digitally. Thats a lot of people, many of them on low wages.

Re:As to be expected...

[goldspider]

I find it amusing how Slashbots consider restrictions on their ability to share media (which they disparage in the next breath as garbage) such an egregious invasion of their civil rights. It's so juvenile!

There are certainly plenty of things to complain about these days. Not being able to copy the latest Britney Spears album is not something you should be getting so worked up over.