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

[Dr. Eggman]

Or they could stop offering internet connections for personal devices and instead only offer connection through university run/approved labs and computer centers. Control over what gets installed or run on such computers could be more strictly controlled. "Off-campus" housing could still provide access, but the University could more easily claim that its outside its authority. You might laugh, but the computer lab used to be the only place you could get connected; why might it not be possible to become so again? Likely, no not really. But still a grim possible approach.

Re:Ah Good

[rtb61]

Simpler than that. The university or school no longer provides internet access. Instead it creates a separate external entity that is a licensed ISP, that provides internet connections for staff and students, thus giving the school the same protections as a common carrier, whilst still providing a cost effective service.

The insane bat shit logic of penalising and punishing students, for what questionable content publishers deem to be non profit enhancing services provided by schools.

What will state governments do next, mandate that schools become licensed distributors of RIAA/MPAA protected content, and that the revenue be used for funding the school.

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

[MightyMartian]

Even if it were a serious statement, this is nothing more than an arm's race, and an arm's race that's the state's (or university's) to lose. Ban encrypted traffic, someone figures out how to disguise it. Figure out how to recognize that, someone comes along and does one better.

Re:Ah Good

[Dr. Eggman]

What will state governments do next, mandate that schools become licensed distributors of RIAA/MPAA protected content, and that the revenue be used for funding the school. Schools already tried that something sort of like that themselves, (probably as a stop-gap against RIAA litigation,) it didn't really work out so great...

Re:Ah Good

[CodeBuster]

The amazing thing is that many students are learning occupations that are dependent on IP and yet continue to ignore it. Lets be honest here, most undergraduate degrees earned at universities today do not translate directly into any marketable jobs skills with the possible exception of basic writing and the ability (hopefully) to think critically and solve problems. Unless your major is business administration or some form of hard science (i.e. chemistry, physics, engineering, etc) you are either going on to graduate school to teach once you complete your PhD OR you are going to end up in some marginal "white collar" job selling insurance, running a franchise, or pushing paper in some cookie-cutter business park surrounded by urban sprawl. The old mantra of work hard, get a college education, and land a high paying job has been broken for at least a decade now. A college education, for the most part, no longer gets you ahead but rather merely affords you the opportunity NOT to fall too far behind.

Re:Ah Good

[CSMatt]

The amazing thing is that many students are learning occupations that are dependent on IP and yet continue to ignore it. I wonder who they expect to provide them a paycheck once they become producers? Or would they rather go the inefficient route of millions of one-offs? For all you know they might work out business models for themselves that don't conflict with file sharing.

Re:Ah Good

[sortius_nod]

Yeh, because it's so hard to hijack another student's computer and utilise it as a proxy... imagine the litigation that would follow for expelling students for downloading when they are innocent. I think it would cost the universities a lot more than $1.2m...

Re:Ah Good

[Nullav]

I agree with the sentiment that universities (and the tax payers) not fund networks that won't be used properly. I realize that a lot of people do use the networks for perfectly valid uses, according to the evidence the bulk of traffic on educational networks is not legitimate (legitimate being for the purposes of education or legal personal uses.)

And would it be proper to take away one of the most useful tools (network access outside of dedicated 'computer labs')? I don't have the paper to back it up, but I'm assuming the cost of network access is covered in the outrageous cost of textbooks and tuition.

The amazing thing is that many students are learning occupations that are dependent on IP and yet continue to ignore it. I wonder who they expect to provide them a paycheck once they become producers?

You don't get rich off music (at least if you're the one writing it), many games bomb for good reason (Though you can always aspire to get bought out by EA, I suppose.), and universities aren't for aspiring screen actors. Don't even get me started on 'art degrees'.

Or would they rather go the inefficient route of millions of one-offs?

As it should be. Even entertainment has its value, but that doesn't mean that a week, or even a year of brilliance should be rewarded for a lifetime. If those one or two works were all you had in you, move on to something else. If you're talking about patents, software/business model patents are stupid and the rest require effort to infringe upon; people aren't going to copy your innovative new engine left and right, and you can get a good sum of money from whoever does.

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.

Re:Ah Good

[Atlantis-Rising]

No, but Microsoft does. Not only does DreamSpark offer college students free software, Microsoft gives it away like candy at their promotional events.

Re:Ah Good

[khellendros1984]

I go to a "polytechnic" university; it tends to mix marketable skills in with the pure academics; I'd say that the only practically useless degrees would be Political Science, Philosophy, etc. Language majors can become writers or translators, agriculture majors have various options open to them from irrigation and landscape design to veterinary work, depending on the exact major. Engineering and science have obvious work applications. I guess my point is that (at least at my school), graduating students tend not to have any problems in finding work that fits with their majors, right out of earning a bachelor's.

Re:Ah Good

[photomonkey]

That's rather funny.

Firstly, I have one of those 'Arts degrees' (BFA in Studio Art with minor studies in journalism, art history and economics). I am gainfully employed, and run my own business. In fact, I tend to avoid working with people who proudly tout their cookie-cutter business, marketing or management degrees from second or third-rate schools (or as derivatives of half-assed efforts put in at first-rate schools). I value people who have educational and/or personal backgrounds that have caused them to develop superior critical thinking skills and a wide range of knowledge that can be focused at different targets with ease.

With that out of the way, I went to college in the late 90's, when just about every student had a computer in the dorms, and each room had two connections. I rarely saw anyone online doing anything school-related. Usually it was Napster, pr0n, games, shopping, Joe Cartoon or trying to figure out how to make a fake ID. I can't imagine that things are different/better now.

Students SHOULD have open and unfettered network access in college, and schools shouldn't be unduly responsible for policing them. Let's just stop pretending, though, that unlimited net access is a critical point of modern collegiate education. As more university resources have gone Web-based, I've seen the quality of education diminish firsthand.

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.

At my university...

[snl2587]

they do this already, and for the most part are very good at it (Limewire and the like can't be used without the user's internet being disconnected).

Of course, many of the people I know simple use uTorrent. So yeah, the legislation won't do much of anything but deny universities money when the US is already lagging worldwide.

Re:At my university...

[thegrassyknowl]

It seems to me that the US Government and many others are focusing on this new-fangled Internet thing because it's a haven for people who pirate music, share terrorist plans and do all sorts of other nasty stuff (like free exchange of ideas). Do they think about anything else?

When will they realise they can't filter the Internet without removing access to all-but one protocol (port) and even then the filters are doomed to failure. Without blocking all other access people will just sidestep the filter and use open relays, proxies and networks like Tor.

They can't possibly hope to analyse all traffic that flows either. The computation power alone would be unfeasible and the amount of false positives would be too high that there'd be a revolt against it.

*grumbles* Instead of finding new and expensive ways of "fixing" the Internet why don't they just fix the copyright, IP and other laws.

Re:At my university...

[MightyMartian]

The reality is that the Internet, like a lot of new technologies throughout history, is going to destroy some businesses. The flintlock and cannon put the archer and spearman out to pasture. The car decimated the horsebreeding industry.

New technologies will render some industries obsolete or unsustainable. RIAA and the MPAA had a good ride as they are currently structured. Well, it's more involved than that. They've spent decades screwing over artists, incautious investors and the taxman (read: the taxpayer). But the model they've used for all that time cannot be sustained in any age of digital reproduction and distribution. It's a dying game. Call it theft if you like, and it is, but the fact that it's so pervasive really tells us that the way intellectual property has been viewed for a couple of centuries is gone.

Re:At my university...

[TheLink]

"it's so pervasive really tells us that the way intellectual property has been viewed for a couple of centuries is gone."

Coup of centuries? I think it's only been viewed as IP for a much shorter time than that.

IP slows down progress. It's only good for
1) People who can only come up with one good idea/CD in their entire life.
2) Companies that enslave such people

OK, I exaggerate and maybe we might need copyright, but it should be a lot shorter, say 7 or 10 years. That way Microsoft will be too afraid of releasing crap like Vista, because they will have to compete against themselves in the form of Win2K. If you say "But then Microsoft wouldn't have bothered to come out with stuff like Windows", answer is companies like Apple would have been happy to fill the need.

Re:At my university...

[Dan541]

Universities are ISPs.

How long will it be until this is forced onto consumer ISPs?

~Dan

Parallels to Civil War

[Shajenko42]

This reminds me of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

Cliff notes: Slave owners couldn't track down slaves that made it to the North, so they made a law saying that federal marshals had to do it for them or face an enormous fine.

Essentially, the same thing that the RIAA is trying to do with copyright infringers - force other people to do their policing for them.

Of course we know what happened to the slave owners - they lost their legal right to own slaves entirely. Who knows how this will affect the RIAA's right to own copyrights.

Re:Parallels to Civil War

[Belial6]

"Of course we know what happened to the slave owners - they lost their legal right to own slaves entirely. Who knows how this will affect the RIAA's right to own copyrights."

You know, that is a good point. Just as most people assume that the 'owning' of information will never be outlawed, there was a time that many believed that the 'owning' of people will never be outlawed. As copyright now stands, we are quickly moving to a slave state. All communication is derivative. All recorded history is... well... recorded. We are young enough that it is still technically possible to function without using copyright material. Every year though, that becomes harder and harder. Much as you cannot just go out into the woods and become a mountain man anymore, the day will soon come that one will not be able to exist in society without using copyright material, and by extension, be under control of those who 'own' the information. It will still be a little while yet, but we are now standing on the cusp of the share cropper stage. We can only hope that outrage is fermented enough to save us, and our future owners are denied their 'property' before things get too bad.

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!...

Just little time...

[nbert]

...until they'll realize that all the efforts the **AA has gone through will result in some people exchanging data on physical media. I'm amazed that they still believe everything will be fixed if the internet has been regulated beyond reason.

There's a theory which says that all music produced up to now will fit on a single hdd within a decade. I'm certain that they will stop chasing universities the moment they'll realize that some people carry all music available in their purse ;)

Who defines pirate bits?

[Anonymous Coward]

How would piracy be defined? So because I have torrent downloading or a P2P network client transferring data I'm now a pirate?

I think many Linux users who download ISOs from these sources would be quite turned off by the prospect of that label.

Re:Who defines pirate bits?

[davidphogan74]

Well, it's not like you paid for Linux, so you must be a pirate. Right?

Re:Who defines pirate bits?

[Dan541]

How would piracy be defined? So because I have torrent downloading or a P2P network client transferring data I'm now a pirate? Does the RIAA like what your doing?

If not your a pirate.

~Dan

checks (to the RIAA) and (bank) balances

[themushroom]

> The University of Utah, for instance, claims that it has reduced MPAA and RIAA complaints by 90 percent ...

The number of MPAA and RIAA complaints directed toward grandmothers and elementary school students has also gone down without the use of filtering. Coincidence?

That, and the U of U is in SLC so chances are the students can just walk over to the nearest temple and listen to a tabernacle choir for free. :-D

Internet Routes around Censorship

[ParadoxDruid]

I can't remember where I first heard it, but the phrase, "The Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it" seems applicable here.

Re:Internet Routes around Censorship

[canuck57]

I can't remember where I first heard it, but the phrase, "The Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it" seems applicable here.

I disagree with that to 98% is easily achievable. Internet access can be policed enough to prevent pirate down links, but not necessarily communication. One limitation a MP3 more MP4 is going to have is they are large enough using DNS to send/receive them, while it might work it is eventually and few will wait the time to download then listen. Plus, even that can be blocked and detected.

Even SSL can be intercepted. Nailed one idiot once this way who thought using a internet proxy and SSL would suffice to hide his tracks.

It comes down to will, policing, cost and management support. But it is policing, the old fashioned way. If a student gets caught, they get cut off. Do it again, and bye-bye - you fail. Without a defined big bat, enforcement is futile.

The question really is, should the school be doing this or not? Usually with like banks, protecting the bank is the owners responsibility. Not the building up the block unrelated to the bank. Is it the MPAA's responsibility or the Universities? This is where the question really come to play. MPAA industry is greedy and lazy. They want the rest of society to protect their property when in fact, they should be doing more. MPAA gets a big fat F for due diligence. The fact they picked medium that is insecure is not everyone elses responsibility. Every one else at fault but mine is a common disease today though.

If it is like business, they will do enough to keep their business running and it does put a load/cost on the network to let it happen. But they do not do more than is needed for this objective.

But I wish the courts would kick the RIAA/MPAA right out on the street and tell them it isn't the courts problem.

They will have to contract it out to comcast

[gambolt]

A guy I know who works in a Campus IT department has said that if bills like this pass they will have no choice but to contract dorm connectivity out to Comcast (and make students pay for it). Efforts to launch stuff like campus wide wifi would be dead in the water. It sounds like it would be the death of .edu, pretty much.

Not their responsibility.

[bigstrat2003]

Enforcing the law is the job of the law enforcement system. No one else. If we're going to suddenly make it the responsibility of universities to ensure their students follow the law, then it's high time we fired our law enforcers... because what, then, are they doing, if not enforcing the law?

Sneaker-net

[glindsey]

Are they going to search every kid's locker and backpack for USB sticks, micro SD-cards, and plain old external hard drive enclosures? From what I've heard, good old sneaker-net is still a common way for kids to exchange movies, songs, games... if they crack down on the net, kids will just resort to physical trading more often.

Why stop with copyrights?

[serutan]

How about withholding money from schools that have too many robberies, assaults, parking tickets and overdue library books?

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.

protest on March 5th in Nashville

[kaldari]

A major protest is planned for Wednesday, March 5th in downtown Nashville. 8AM, corner of 6th Ave. and Union (near the capital building). Come and show your opposition to this ridiculous legislation.

Re:protest on March 5th in Nashville

[Wildclaw]

The only reason the real world works like it does is because of that exact attitude your are displaying.

"Don't question authority. Just shut up an work. If you have any time to question authority, work some more."

Keeping the general population apathetic, tired, scared and separated on unimportant issues is vital to maintaining the most control so you can reap the most benefits.

A population that care enough and have energy to activly questions new legislation, that can't be fooled by scare tactics and that don't fight among each other is the worst nightmare for anyone looking to gain more power.

Why schools should exclusively use free software

[QuantumG]

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html

There are general reasons why all computer users should insist on free software. It gives users the freedom to control their own computers--with proprietary software, the computer does what the software owner wants it to do, not what the software user wants it to do. Free software also gives users the freedom to cooperate with each other, to lead an upright life. These reasons apply to schools as they do to everyone.

But there are special reasons that apply to schools. They are the subject of this article.

First, free software can save the schools money. Even in the richest countries, schools are short of money. Free software gives schools, like other users, the freedom to copy and redistribute the software, so the school system can make copies for all the computers they have. In poor countries, this can help close the digital divide.

This obvious reason, while important, is rather shallow. And proprietary software developers can eliminate this disadvantage by donating copies to the schools. (Watch out!--a school that accepts this offer may have to pay for future upgrades.) So let's look at the deeper reasons.

School should teach students ways of life that will benefit society as a whole. They should promote the use of free software just as they promote recycling. If schools teach students free software, then the students will use free software after they graduate. This will help society as a whole escape from being dominated (and gouged) by megacorporations. Those corporations offer free samples to schools for the same reason tobacco companies distribute free cigarettes: to get children addicted (1). They will not give discounts to these students once they grow up and graduate.

Free software permits students to learn how software works. When students reach their teens, some of them want to learn everything there is to know about their computer system and its software. That is the age when people who will be good programmers should learn it. To learn to write software well, students need to read a lot of code and write a lot of code. They need to read and understand real programs that people really use. They will be intensely curious to read the source code of the programs that they use every day.

Proprietary software rejects their thirst for knowledge: it says, "The knowledge you want is a secret--learning is forbidden!" Free software encourages everyone to learn. The free software community rejects the "priesthood of technology", which keeps the general public in ignorance of how technology works; we encourage students of any age and situation to read the source code and learn as much as they want to know. Schools that use free software will enable gifted programming students to advance.

The next reason for using free software in schools is on an even deeper level. We expect schools to teach students basic facts, and useful skills, but that is not their whole job. The most fundamental mission of schools is to teach people to be good citizens and good neighbors--to cooperate with others who need their help. In the area of computers, this means teaching them to share software. Elementary schools, above all, should tell their pupils, "If you bring software to school, you must share it with the other children." Of course, the school must practice what it preaches: all the software installed by the school should be available for students to copy, take home, and redistribute further.

Teaching the students to use free software, and to participate in the free software community, is a hands-on civics lesson. It also teaches students the role model of public service rather than that of tycoons. All levels of school should use free software.

Re:Always has - always will

[TheLink]

Zero please.

Q: How many Economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Economists don't change lightbulbs- they sit in the darkness writing academic papers and wait for Adam Smith's Invisible hand to do it.

Q: How many Internet Fans does it take to bypass restrictions?
A: They talk about "nuke proof", "routes around censorship" and hope someone else does it.

Hurting encrypted P2P without hurting nonP2P users is not immensely hard as long as nonP2P users never have lots of encrypted connections to many destinations at the same time.

What you do is rotate a user's bandwidth allocation on encrypted traffic to/from the various different _destinations_ of a user. So if you are using encryption to 8 different destinations, say only the first gets bandwidth for a few seconds, then _only_ the second, then the third and so on. If lots of ISPs do that, the odds of connections amongst affected users being "unsquished" drops with the number of destinations with encrypted traffic they have.

If you are only using encryption to one destination that's not going to hurt you at all. If you're an https user, sure only pages and stuff from one server at a time will be downloaded quickly, but I doubt most people will notice.

If Copyright wasn't so broken, ISPs would be able to cache copyrighted material - they could set up "super peers" give them priority, and when they detect something being torrented, they get their super peers to fetch it fast and seed it to everyone in their network.

If ISPs tried that now, they'll get sued.

Re:American Schools

[Asky314159]

In America, the word 'school' can correctly be used to describe any educational institution, regardless of age. If you're talking specifically about children and teenagers, you attach an adjective, like 'K-12 schools', 'elementary schools', 'middle schools', or 'high schools'. If you're talking about a place to get a degree, 'university' and 'college' are used interchangeably. But all of them can be described as 'school'.

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!

RIAA hacks

[Wandering_Turtle]

The RIAA is lobbying its way into the legislature. They don't actually work for artists, they just claim to represent them in order to get the cash. Trying to get colleges and universities to enforce their pet legislation is akin to selling our government to the loudest (and maybe highest too) bidder. The cost will just build up over time and cost far more than artists lose.