Proposed Bill in Tennessee Penalizes Schools for Allowing Piracy

An anonymous reader brings us an Ars Technica report about a proposed bill in Tennessee which would require state-funded universities to enforce anti-piracy standards. The universities would be forced to "track down and stop infringing activity" or risk losing their funding. The U.S. Congress requested last year that certain universities do this voluntarily. Quoting: "Efforts taken by universities thus far to deter and prevent piracy have had mixed results. The University of Utah, for instance, claims that it has reduced MPAA and RIAA complaints by 90 percent and saved $1.2 million in bandwidth costs by instituting anti-piracy filtering mechanisms. However, the school revealed that their filtering system hasn't been able to stop encrypted P2P traffic and noted that students will find ways to circumvent any system. The end result, some say, will be a costly arms race as students perpetually work to circumvent anti-piracy systems put in place by universities."

Comments

Ah Good

[MightyMartian]

Ah good, so Tennessee has the magic black box that can sniff out encrypted traffic.

Right?

Re:Ah Good

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Tennessee?

They used to penalize schools that allowed students with teeth!

Re:Ah Good

[Digi-John]

In other news, enrollment at the University of Tennessee has dropped off sharply this year. The U of T cites the cause as "damn kids these days", while assuring the public that it has nothing to do with their recent network changes.

Re:Ah Good

[epee1221]

Ah good, so Tennessee has the magic black box that can sniff out encrypted traffic.

Well, the evil bit is right there in the packet header.

In other news...

[Harmonious Botch]

The NSA reports a record recruiting year from students at the Univ of Utah. "They are some very talented cryptography students.", says NSA spokesman.

Really now?

[eggman9713]

If universitites actually enforced their network access policies (academic, non personal business only blah blah), I would never be able to post this comm

Re:Really now?

[Dr. Eggman]

Arthur: What?
Maynard: '"...I would never be able to post this comm"'.
Bedevere: What is that?
Maynard: He must have been caught while typing it.
Lancelot: Oh, come on!
Maynard: Well, that's what it says.
Arthur: Look, if he was being taken away, he wouldn't bother to type 'comm'.
Maynard: Well, that's what's written in the post!
Galahad: Perhaps he was dictating.
Arthur: Oh, shut up. Well, does it say anything else?
Maynard: No. Just 'comm'.

[There is a thunderous roar, and the Knigh75 see a huge, animated Sys. Admin. behind them.]

Maynard: It's the Legendary Sys. Admin. of -- [the Admin b&s him] -- &#*$#NO_CARRIER!!!
Arthur/Knigh75: RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!...

Re:Why stop with copyrights?

[MightyMartian]

The record and movie indusry lobbiests don't give a damn about rape, murder, assaults and double-parking assholes. They're job is buy the political whores that sit in Washington and state legislatures.

What I think we need to do is to pass a Constitutional amendment forcing all politicians to dress up like the cheap tarts they really are. Every morning before they go into a session, they should be forced to stand out on the street showing their legs while lobbiests are constitutionally required to throw nickels at them.

If we're going to have pathetic whores in power, they should be forced in every way to behave like them.

Dhoh!

[florescent_beige]

Proposed Bill In Tennessee... Hmmm what?

...Penalizes Schools For... "Teaching Intelligent Design" Oh please please say "Teaching Intelligent Design".

...Allowing Piracy Dhoh! So close!