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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.
No it's enough to make you wish you had enough money to buy your own politicians, so you could write the laws you wanted.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
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.
These guys seem to think they are the government ... or at least, in their own minds, they feel they should be.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
(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.
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!
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
According to the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, they are. Through the elimination of independent engineering of standard compliant hardware/software, they have legislative control over the entire consumer electronic sector through their licenses. Because they made it illegal to implement a playback device through other means, they can put any outrageous demand on their license agreements they wish, and CE firms have to eat it whole and raw, to the detriment of the customers.
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
It doesn't matter what kind of laws they write—if we stop buying their stuff, they will eventually go out of business, fascist laws and draconian enforcements notwithstanding.
Ever since I found out more about the copyright industry vs. the public struggle, I made sure I spent absolutely nothing on what's produced by MPAA and RIAA members—no music sold through a major record label, and no movies (I used to go to theater once every month or so—not anymore). Of course, one man not handing money over to MPAA and RIAA may not make a difference, but if you and I stop making them a profit and tell everyone we know not to, one day we just might.
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
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.
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/
I have been consistently arguing in favor of copyright on slashdot and elsewhere. But this is not about enforcing existing laws, it is about tying college educational funding to policing of the students by their colleges. That is something the colleges have neither the mandate nor the expertise to do. Also, depriving an already underfunded public education system even more just because some students violate copyright laws strikes me as a really dumb idea.
The biggest parties (usually two) in any goverment are mostly equally corrupt. Losing votes to their opposite big party doesn't scare them that much. They are simply two sides of the same coin. If they lose in one election, they will simply adjust their stances a little to gain back the voters they lost. It is just ordinary politics.
The real solution is to vote for third parties.. What really scares mainstream politicians is losing votes to someone who isn't well known, because that means that people are beginning to notice that the mainstream parties are two sides of the same coin and rejecting that coin.
Of course, before every election you will hear how you should vote for one of the big candidates, because other votes don't matter. In actuality it is the opposite. Votes for big candidates don't matter since they are all votes for the same coin. They simply reinforce the opinions that the current politicians in power have.
There are of course times when voting for the lesser of two evils has its purpose, but it is far less often than most people would think. To avoid this completly it would of course be better to have a system where you could rank your candidates, but try getting that into the law.
False dichotomy. Just because you don't support the corporatocracy doesn't mean you're a communist.