Slashdot Mirror
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."
Ah good, so Tennessee has the magic black box that can sniff out encrypted traffic.
Right?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The NSA reports a record recruiting year from students at the Univ of Utah. "They are some very talented cryptography students.", says NSA spokesman.
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.
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.
...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
I don't read replies by ACs.
> The University of Utah, for instance, claims that it has reduced MPAA and RIAA complaints by 90 percent ...
:-D
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.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
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.
This statement is solely an opinion. Kindly take it as such in all cases.
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.
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?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
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.
How about withholding money from schools that have too many robberies, assaults, parking tickets and overdue library books?
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.
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
...Penalizes Schools For... "Teaching Intelligent Design" Oh please please say "Teaching Intelligent Design".
...Allowing Piracy Dhoh! So close!Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller