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Copyright Lobbies Threaten Federal College Funding
plasmacutter writes "The EFF is raising the alarm regarding provisions injected into a bill to renew federal funding for universities. These new provisions call for institutions of higher learning to filter their internet connections and twist student's arms over 'approved' digital media distribution services. 'Under said provision: Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable — (2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity. Similar provisions in last year's bill did not survive committee, it appears however that this bill is headed toward the full house for vote.' Responding to recriminations over this threat to university funding, an MPAA representative claims federal funds should be at risk when copyright infringement happens on campus networks." We've previously discussed this topic, as well as similar issues.
Really ... it's enough to make you want to throw up.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
They need to learn another 4-letter term: RICO.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
This is just another act of the **AAs wanting to bludgeon people over the head for their own profits, and whether we give them what they want or not their response will just be to want more bludgeoning. They're going to push for a copyright term extension and tougher penalties every year, there is no right amount they are shooting for but just to keep increasing them at any cost.
To keep the "throw up" metaphor going, all that a university has to do to comply is to throw some ideas up in the air and call it a "plan." The key language is that a university needs to DEVELOP a plan. There's nothing saying they have to IMPLEMENT that plan. A lot of schools have started offering subsidized Yahoo!Music and Rhapsody subscriptions as a way to give their students music without having to file-share to get it. Everybody get something out of the deal--the university pays lower upstream bandwidth costs and the students get legal access to bazillions of songs. Maybe actually paying for Yahoo! isn't great for the university's budget, but nothing says they have to actually DO anything--they just have to PLAN to.
Apparently it's simply more important to protect ??AA profits than it is to have an open and freethinking educational system. Signs of this are all over the place, from both parties. Evolution, anyone? Anyone wonder how soon teaching that the universe is older than 6000 years will be challenged, or Galileo will rejoin the ranks of heretics?
We're on the road!
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The story links to an article that was posted on November 19, 2007! From what it says, the bill's already been debated. Isn't this just a tad out of date?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
(a) In General- Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable--
(1) make publicly available to their students and employees, the policies and procedures related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials required to be disclosed under section 485(a)(1)(P); and
(2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
The main story from the EFF blog is dated jan 14th '08
I've noticed this a lot lately, any government agency, lobbyist group, or any group that is supposed to be fighting crime views every single person in the world as criminals.
In the eyes of the federal government, we are all terrorists, so our Constitutional rights should be taken away.
In the eyes of Comcast and Verizon, we all use our Internet connections that we pay for to do illegal stuff, so we should have our Internet connections regulated, censored, and spied on.
In the eyes of the MPAA and RIAA, we are all illegal software pirates that deserve to be sued for millions of dollars.
And in the eyes of collages and universities across the United States, we are all criminals who are plotting school shootings and bombings, and deserve to have the FBI raid our dorms, be arrested, and be kicked out of collage.
See the picture here? Everyone thinks that if they label every single person on Earth as a criminal, it will make all our problems go away. But they are wrong. They are all wrong.
The federal government thinks they are keeping us safe by treating every single American as a terrorist plotting to blow up the country, but what about the people who actually are plotting something like that? They would never catch them because they would be too bush prosecuting innocent people to notice!
With airports locked down tightly thesse days, travelers are annoyed by all the security checks and security stuff to make sure people don't have weapons. But the people who actually want to do harm could probably easily smuggle that kind of stuff by them.
And for all the piracy bullshit, they think that shoving the DMCA and RIAA lawyers in everyone's faces will stop the 1% of people who ACTUALLY steal software, movies, and music, while the other 99% of us suffer. But it WON'T! Hell, I'm getting very tempted to start illegally putting brand new movies on BitTorrent just to stick it to the RIAA, MPAA, etc. If we're all criminals in these people's eyes, what would it matter? Personally I don't agree with downloading movies and music (with music sucking with that rap crap, what is there to download?), but I don't think it should be a federal crime punishable with million dollar fines and stuff.
When will they learn, the government and RIAA can't solve all their problems like this!
Frankly there's only two ways you can stop piracy from happening on college grounds.
1) Buy everyone in the school music accounts to download music thus rasing the tutition, Which enrages students and punishes students who prefer going to buy their music at music stores, and will ultimetly result in retention levels dropping in an already competitive market as it is.
Or
2) The Amish Method. Cut the internet cable since there's nothing on the market that can assure 100% piracy free internet, ban all computers since they can make MP3's using a line in jack and a CD player, and ultimely ban electric power from everywhere on campus, since they could possibly use electricy to copy a tape with a boombox or operate an electric guitar.
At least the english, math and history professors would be happy with #2, since calculators would be banned and people would have to be forced to write their thesis's on parchment. Of course, Victrolas would have to be banned too, but it's hard finding a wind up one these days. Maybe they'll come back in vogue.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
This is yet another reason to boycott the RIAA. I heard that music industry album sales took a real dive last year. Let's assist them going down even further for 2008.
As far as the MPAA goes, perhaps they also need to be reminded what happens when they bite the hand that feeds them. (Of course, if the writer's strike lasts long enough, it will leave them very economically vulnerable. What better time to boycott the bastards?)
Messing with college kids always goes over well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War
when the feudal system returns
You don't get it, do you? When funding for education comes from the feds, the schools are vassals to the feds. The feudal system is already here, only now it's called socialism.
Want better schools? Then keep your money away from the feds, and spend it on schools that meet your standards, not the Ruling Party's standards.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Anyone employed by the RIAA has his or her degree(s) annulled. Let's see how many lawsuits are accepted by the courts from a bunch of laypersons with only high school diplomas.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Using the Federal government's power to force universities into compliance with **AA demands is the equivalent of using our collective resources to help/save a company/industry's problems. If we extend the **AA's analogy and reasoning, we might as well go around the world attacking countries that compete with us commercially. GM losing market shares to Toyota? Bomb Japan! Oracle losing to SAP? Bomb Germany! Windows losing to Linux and OSS? Assassinate Linus and arrest Stallman!
Copyright violations is a problem that affects a group of companies and an industry. Why should we be forced to collectively pay for their outdated business model/practices? How does this benefit the rest of us? If you don't think we'll end up paying for this, imagine what happens when universities don't get their Federal funding and our students don't get their education. Higher education is an absolute necessity for a productive country.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Every time something like this happens, I send $20 to the EFF. If you are equally outraged, I would encourage you to do the same.
For instance, no one under 21 is supposed to drink. Most students at colleges are under 21, so clearly colleges should do more to make sure that alcohol is not available to the majority of the students.
I would also certainly think the software distributors would want the same protections, and representatives like the BSA has a zero tolerance policy. If one piece of pirated software is found on one computer on the campus, revoke all the funding.
i also know from pretty good sources that our college campuses are swarming with stolen calculators. Underage kids steal them, and then sell to college kids for half price. It is hard to prosecute the college kids for receiving stolen property, btu easy enough to revoke funding if the school does not put into place a program to teach the kids that stealing is wrong. Because, obviously, the problem is not that the temptation of cheap calcultors, but that they students were never taught right from wrong.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Second of all, no one is necessarily opposed to cracking down on piracy, we're opposed to the bullshit "you must offer an alternative" clause. Why don't we have all businesses making doing business with them mandatory while we're at it?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
What they (MPAA & RIAA) want is money from tax payers. The university must subscribe to a solution for all students whether said student uses it or not. Plus filter and turn over to them the traffic records for all student based connections. They don't care about the 98% who they will hurt if funding gets cut.
write or call you representative and tell them what a crock this is.
"(2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity."
Here is the beginnings of one such plan...
2.a. When it comes to music, music that does not have a Free License is not allowed on the campus networks. Net even legally purchased music if it doesn't have a Free License.
2.b. The University has set up a server at freemusic.university.edu where we host music with licenses as described in 2.a.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Well, that makes me about sick. "Let's sacrifice the education of our youth and the future of the nation by cutting funding to ensure Hollywood makes an extra few dollars." I guess when universities have to reduce programs and students begin getting denies admission, we will be able to more easily secure the "dumbest nation on earth" status. But hey, at least the movie and music industries will get their money. How bright do you have to be to sit in a meeting and say "We can't find anyone smart enough to invent a technology to control this. Well, let's go ahead and stifle education. Maybe increasing the ignorance in a population will create a genius to write the software we need." The more people that complete college = more people with good jobs = less people that feel the need to use p2p for music and movies. Apparently these lawyers are from the future where the education system was butchered. They're obviously products of such a system. Wonder which country we stole the time-travel tech from because we sure as hell didn't invent it. There's going to be a special place for folks someday.
Wow, freedom of choice, that's new. And they're already bankrupt. Wouldn't it be great if it were in dollars too? Then we'd be rid of these distractions that waste our physical and financial lives.
"I don't know about you but most of my favorite movies weren't made in someones garage with a new mac. It's nice when people do that... but no I don't want to see professional art disappear in favor of someones amateur attempts."
Everyone was an amateur once. Amateurs existed before there was an industry and they will after it is gone. Professional art, the tastes of the arrogant running roughshod over the tastes of everyone else.
I mean, the whole country is locked in the hands of an investment class that frowns upon any enterprise that even smacks of productivity. They would rather rake the poor over the coals with high interest just because it has a higher return. They seek to restrict and restrain any trade that offers meaningful competition. They seek to make the people believe that their subjugation is moral, and they seek to use cultural preferences to divide the nation and hide any real agenda.
Show me the candidate that wants to ban credit cards, reduce the terms of patents, or do any structural thing designed to break up the current moneyed class. There isn't one. There's no political party seeking to benefit the American people, merely, a set of dueling soulless juggernaughts, jousting, half drunk with power, over whose lords will crush the masses the most.
This is my sig.
I'm afraid (of losing karma because) I'm the one to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Quotes from this article as posted at this moment:
"These new provision"
"institutions of higher learn"
"We've previous discussed"
(At least) Three gross errors in one posted article. And to think that this is about federal funding for public colleges and universities. I humbly submit we need more.
sigfault (core dumped)
If you don't mind my asking.. how much do you currently pay to send your children (assuming you have them) to school?
Seriously, I'm interested.. a ballpark figure is fine, i don't expect you to divulge your yearly earnings for everyone to see.. I mean, sure if you feel like boasting..
Point is.. You and I (and most people on this site, i imagine) earn more than the average person. Hell, I earn more than the average American, and i do it in a foreign currency with a lower value. For you and I, picking a school for our kids is a matter of choice. But we're relatively big fish... what about all those people who can't afford private schooling? Don't their kids deserve to be (at least potentially) useful, educated and productive members of society? I mean, there's only one alternative to that, and it's being a constant drain on welfare... Frankly, i'd rather have a bunch of rich people complaining about paying taxes so that poor kids can get educated than a bunch of rich people complaining because they were repeatedly mobbed by beggars just outside their door.
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
Even if Downloading == Stealing like the RIAA wants you to believe, does the federal government cut off funds to schools with a high rate of crime? What if a group of students steal from a store does that warrant federal funds to be cut off? What about underage drinking and illegal drugs being used? I don't see how the RIAA convinces people that unauthorized downloading is a capital crime, if we don't do it for stealing or substance use, why do it for downloading. If only congress had a mind that could think for itself....
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
Not true.
If no one is buying their product, they will claim that it is due to the illegal copying of their product - proving that they need more stringent laws.
Ad infinitum.
This sig is intentionally blank
As a student at an "institution of higher learn" (guess which one) I have experienced these attempts to control filesharing. There was a point where internet connections were being turned off due to high traffic, assuming 4GB over bittorrent was always "evil." I am a CS student, and I have several distros on my computer. I heard about this just in time to stop sharing them, as I can't afford to lose my connection to the internet or the internal Unix machines (our programs must run on them). They have backed off, and claim that only illegal filesharing will be punished, but I don't trust them, they have failed too many times. It is not the place of the internet provider, be they a university or a business, to filter and decide what bits are evil. They will, without fail, punish the innocent.
Something that's pretty strange, and while I'm not licenced to practice law in any state of the Unided States, I don't see where it's illegal to OBTAIN unlicenced intellectual property, only to PROVIDE it. On the other hand, receiving stolen goods IS a crime.
.ogg (a better MP3) songs that I do not own the CD. I've never downloaded anything that I did not purchase an origianal licenced copy of if it is covered under triditional copyright. That that create a work I apprecite deserve to be conpensated for their effort under the terms they make their work available.
How I see it is that RIAA and MPAA are failing to provide their content in a way that is easy, free of silly encumbrances, and are guilty of product tying. In other words, their bleetings are a product of their outmoded and protectionist practices, not because they actually add any value.
Put another way, if RIAA and MPAA are allowed to seek injunctions against receiving their products in a way they don't approve, I'd like to seek injunctions against every power company that provides electricity because it cuts into my profits in selling whale oil and whale oil lamps. Out moded business models should die because of market pressure, not thrive due to political contributions, rigged laws, or "The Disney Copyright Protection Act".
That said, Intellictual property is property, and depriving those that own it of legitimate compensation is theft. There are many inequities in movies, even more in music. But one cannot legitimately usurp agreed contracts of the creators of that IP, no matter how unfair it is to the creators. They agreed to it, after all.
I do not have any
If you don't like the people or the circumstances the work is made available under, the simple solution is to avoid the work. Don't buy it. Don't download it. Don't view it, and don't support them in any way. This is why I've not see a Sony move, bought a Sony CD, or purchsed a PC with Sony chips that I could avoid. (Not always possible, but you can TRY.)
For the same reason, I do not own Blue-Ray. I have HD-DVD. I may have to go to Blue-Ray as it displaces HD-DVD, but I'll only go there once HD-DVD is a thing of the past.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
False dichotomy. Just because you don't support the corporatocracy doesn't mean you're a communist.
Thank you for your post. In the real (as opposed to virtual) world, I sometimes feel very alone in my opinions.
To think, education takes second place to fostering consumerism. And, really, you have to be stupid to buy their product. It makes an evil sort of sense.
I'll come visit you at the remedial reading comprehension class, idiot!
Do you know anything about McCarthyism? He basically labeled anyone who opposed his beliefs a communist. If you read the parent's post carefully, you'd see that he actually speaks for productivity, trade, and competition - hardly communist ideals.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Just because something is against the law doesn't make it wrong. For example, in countries that have more unjust laws than the US, such as China, do the journalists who break the law when they make negative reports about the government "deserve whatever happens" to them?
The purpose of copyright is not to make anyone money. It is to expand the public domain for the good of the public. Copyright law is meant to serve the public. The constitution says nothing about artists deserving to make any kind of money. It is all about benefitting the public. Current copyright law actually does the opposite of its original purpose: as copyright gets stretched, works never fall into public domain. It is an unjust law that should be broken. As long as politicians are paid off, this unjust law will only get worse. Because of this, I would even argue that it may even be our duty to break copyright law.
Sharing our own culture is our right. This has been taken away from us.
You can whine and snivel all you want, but the law is the law. You don't like the law? Then form a group, a coalition, raise money to hire the best K's streeters you can afford to lobby congress to get it changed, That is how the system works, use it.This group is called the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
I don't think anyone's saying that. The fact is, there is a class of people that tends to take advantage over the poor. Trying to fix those problems does not make one a communist, so put away the McCarthyism.
Despite what some people would have you believe, there's more to the world that just black and white partisan politics; there are middle grounds. You can have a mixed system to promote the general well being and the common good without becoming ruthless or authoritarian, which, coincidentally, is what can happen to capitalist societies if left alone. A good example is the political corruption of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It wasn't the free market that fixed those problems, is was (the now called) socialist policies, and without those policies, life would generally suck.
Communism doesn't work (at least, it hasn't in the past), but plutocracy ain't too hot either. Think of economic policies like salt. Salt is made up of an explosive metal and a poisonous gas, but without salt, you die. Pure communism and capitalism are very bad things; we need a mixture, and sometimes the mixture needs to be adjusted. If it wasn't for having a mixture, we'd both probably be working in sweatshops right now.