College Funding Bill Passes House, P2P Provision Intact

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the College Opportunity and Affordability Act passed through the House today with a vote of 354-58 and the anti-P2P provision is intact. That provision would require universities to filter P2P and to offer legal alternatives. They are claiming now, though, that universities would not lose federal funding if they fail to do this. Of course, an amendment that would have clarified that was withdrawn immediately after it was offered."

Comments

Of course

[Dunbal]

Leaving things as they are will make (more) millions for (more) lawyers. So the government funded/susidized universities will be using gov't funds to fight the RIAA, and the RIAA will pay expensive legal bills to make sure they keep those "unrealized profits" as low as possible. Maybe one day they will wake up and...bleh, I am so sick of this argument.

It doesn't how it is claimed a law will be used

[corsec67]

What matters is the worst possible case scenario for how a law could be interpreted, and how the scope of the law could creep. DMCA, Patriot[sic] Act, Commerce Clause, etc...

In this case: even if the removal of funding doesn't occur immediately, if it is in the law it will most likely be used.

When was the last time that the government said "no, I don't need more power"?

A few major ones are Prohibition and the 55 MPH speed limit

Re:What's needed for this madness to stop

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just asking for completely decentralized encrypted network. Soon they'll get it.

Re:College = education.

[eli pabst]

I don't think it is that absurd for a college CS major to be downloading a linux ISO from bittorrent. I don't mind Universities helping copyright holders protect their works, but denying all P2P traffic is a ham-fisted way of doing it. If they want to filter based on content, that's fine, but even that isn't fool-proof. You have to be very careful in how you legislate this because its people who can't afford to go to college without university support that are going to be paying the price.

I think examples such as the DMCA should make us wary of how well-intentioned legislation can go wrong when you have technologically illiterate politicians guided by industry lobbyists doing the writing.

Re:Here is some Clarification

[Richard_at_work]

Even so... IMHO this still opens the door to more Orwellian legislation, and provides further evidence of how industry pwnes our government.

Sounds like you are too young (or too old) to remember the 1984 (apt year eh?) National Minimum Drinking Age Act which saw the US Federal Government force each state to raise the minimum drinking age to 21 ....... or face retaliation by way of reducing Federal aid for state highways. Hows that for Orwellian?

Not really a win.

[gnutoo]

The part about filtering P2P is disturbing but there's are plenty of good legal alternatives to RIAA crap. I'd love to see every university mirror the Internet Archive, Creative Commons and promote work from people in their community. Let's take that part of this stupid law and make something cool that will continue to bleed the RIAA out of existence.

Re:Not really a win.

[milsoRgen]

good legal alternatives to RIAA crap I know you're going for something different in your comment then what I'm about to reply with but...

There are alternatives to RIAA members. I am a big fan Epitaph/Hellcat records, and it seems really up in the air as to whether or not they are an RIAA member. Lord knows they don't exactly have bands signed that would put up with this nonsense. Anyways from Wikipeida:

In mid-2005 Epitaph was added to the official list of RIAA members along with several other high-profile independent labels. The reason for the listing is not clear, but one source points to an agreement for internet P2P distribution ("Independent Labels Sign Deal With Snocap"). Another source claims label management joined RIAA in order to get certified sales awards (ie, official "Gold" or "Platinum" record status) for releases. This sparked some controversy as some feel they should no longer be labeled independent if they are a member of the RIAA.

However, the only source that has actually been used for these claims of membership is the official RIAA membership list, which has been disputed. As of this writing, not only is Epitaph listed as an official member, but Lookout! Records are once again listed, even though they were already falsely listed before.
Sorry that quote was a little long in the tooth, just wanted to clarify my point. And my point is, there are some pretty excellent alternatives to the big guns of the recording industry, as well as the fact that it would appear not everyone that deals with the RIAA is expressly condoning their behavior since they are in fact involved in the certification process of top selling records.. Granted Epitaph/Hellcat caters to a certain kind of music. The fact remains there are many smaller labels out there for everyone.

Seems like now, more than ever, would be a good time to support local artists and brick-and-mortar record stores that cater (however slight) to the independent and local music scenes. The Record Exchange - Boise, ID FTW

Re:Not really a win.

[perlchild]

It's simple, if "the people" don't punish government for acting against their interests, government will do so again.

With both parties being pro-industry, it seems at least in the US, that a lot of people are out of luck... As for class warfare, are you sure the war isn't over already, with the rich having "won"?

The phrase "intellectual property"

[tepples]

[Each institution must] develop [1.] a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as [2.] a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity. Complying with 1 could begin with "Alternatives to illegal copying of music include iRate Radio, eMusic.com, iTunes Store, and dozens of other sites." But what worries me here is the use of the phrase "intellectual property" instead of the more precise "copyrighted works". Which patent, trademark, and trade secret owners have lobbied for this wording?

Re:What Will Harvard Do?

[ScrewMaster]

Unlike most private schools, Harvard doesn't need them.

So lies == bullshit laws now

[Doug52392]

So the MPAA lied and said 44% of damages from illegal movie downloading is caused by collage kids, says that for 2 years, then tells everyone due to "human error", it's more like 15%. Now they pass this bullshit legislation that will, yet again, destroy the rights and civil liberities of collage kids. Will someone get these dreaded 4 letter industry lobbyist organizations out of the picture?

Wealthy Universities

[rossz]

The top universities don't need funding, anyway. Harvard, for example, has so much in endowments that they could permanently stop charging tuition without putting a dent in their mountain of money. I'd love to see something like that. A top university that didn't care about your money. They could concentrate on what they "say" is all that is important, the prospective students qualifications. So a brilliant but poor black kid from the ghetto would truly have a leg up on some mediocre rich white kid. It's never going to happen, though. Congress has threatened to get involved if universities don't spend at least 5% of the endowments to lower tuition, but it's an idle threat. Way too many congress-critters have close ties with those universities.