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Online Quiz As a Gateway to P2P
Andy Guess points out an interesting approach taken by a Missouri university to limiting (and limiting legal exposure because of) on-campus, on-line copyright violations, as described at Inside Higher Ed: "In order to download (or upload) files on any peer-to-peer network whatsoever, all on-campus users at Missouri S&T have to pass an online quiz on copyright infringement. But not just once. Passing the test — with a perfect score — enables peer-to-peer access for six hours on the user's on-campus registered machines."
How long before some smart kids come up with a script to automatically complete the quiz? (and possibly sell it to fellow students)
The Mothership
So how many seconds will it take for someone to write a script to automatically take this quiz for you every 6 hours?
Education is no substitute for intelligence, as people who run institutions of higher education are usually well educated.
Of course, if I saw a check from the RIAA's bank made out to the university President, I'd have a higher opinion of the intelligence of the people running Missouri U.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Like passing a test on the law on driving before getting a drivers license (for X years). Having to get a driver's license hasn't stopped auto accidents, or auto crime for that matter.
They say it eliminates the student from being able to claim ignorance of the law, but when has that ever been an excuse? If they just want to shape traffic (as the article mentions) then they could do that without having 6 hour licenses.
So, this is just more useless bureaucracy. And how long until someone makes a bot to defeat the test?
all on-campus users at Missouri S&T have to pass an online quiz on copyright infringement
If I headed this university, I'd make my students take quizzes on math, chemistry, physics and whatever else the university teaches, to get access to P2P. I mean, if they want their music bad enough, they'd have a great incentive to do well at school.
But quizzes on copyright infringement? talk about brainwashing. As if they had nothing more productive to cram their brains with. Sheesh... On top of it, it's a trap: if a student is caught downloading illegal material, he can't claim ignorance.
All in all, a rotten idea that could have been a great one. You can feel the twisted minds of **AA execs behind this sorry scheme...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That sound you heard was 1500 students going to another university this fall.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I have taken many tests and I have found that getting a perfect score is not so much about knowing the material as about knowing the expectations of the person who wrote the test.The answer would vary depending upon how well the person "grading" the test understood "stealing" and "copyright infringement" and your local, state and national laws.
There was a time when university campuses were bastions of free thought and conscience. Of course, the administrations were usually composed of the worst variety pedantic, bum-kissing bureaucrat the academic version of Social Darwinism could produce.
I'm not sure about free thought and conscience anymore, but the administration part seems to be just about the same.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I've got a better idea: let's require everyone to pass a test before using the internet at all.
(brb, selling MySpace stock)
Exactly, these questions that will surely be asked on the test will try to make it seem like copyright infringement is stealing as much as 2+2=4 rather then asking a moral question that can be taken either way. I am surprised to see that whenever a professor expresses views that might be objectionable the media attacks them, but with "piracy" they seem to make it seem like it is stealing when it clearly is not.
If the question is why is stealing bad, the answer would be that the person being stolen from doesn't have what got stolen. For example if someone stole your car, the bad part wouldn't be that someone has a new car but rather you don't have a car. With piracy though its the opposite, for downloading a song no one has any less songs as they can be copied and you have a new song, the RIAA seem to punish the fact you have a new song rather then the infinite supply of songs is running out. This seems to beg the question, if we can ever create a replicator that will make a perfect copy of things without doing any harm to the original will making a new item be called stealing? Because, has history is showing us, in a way that already has happened just with music and not physical goods.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I didn't get the cognitive dissonance angle at all from this. I figured it's more like one of those waivers you have to sign at things like rock climbing gyms, or high risk activities, where you don't just sign your name at the end of a stack of papers, but you initial every paragraph. I've even seen one where I had to rewrite by hand an entire paragraph about how I wouldn't sue the place if I got injured, etc.
If they include this quiz, and only allow users who score 100%, then maybe the network can't be held responsible for copyright infringement, since they've screened for users who don't know what's off limits.
And complementing that sound, was the sound of the university's network bills falling, as they've now selected the cheapest students.
Well it does serve to educate the student about copyright infringement and prove that the student is fully aware of the consequences of his actions in the event that he does engage in piracy. This could be a move to limit the school's liability in civil suits involving its students. If the school forces the students to continually and consistently demonstrate that they understand what copyright infringement is, then the school wouldn't necessarily be liable for the actions of its students. (I hesitate to say "can't" be held liable, although this does seem like more than a good faith effort on their part.)
Not that I advocate this. It just looks like the university caving to corporate interests to protect themselves.
That argument only makes sense in the context of every content creator (note that I did not say distributor) subscribes to the same principals and personal philosophy that you do. Which is a pretty arrogant assumption.
Illegal is defined by the law.
Immoral is defined by society.
Lots of interesting things happen when these two get confused. The US government, for example, doesn't generally understand that there's a difference. Something can be legal while being immoral, and vice-versa. I think that your argument doesn't separate these concepts sufficiently.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
So how did "Click here if you're over 18, we can't allow access to kids" cognitive dissonance work?
A blazing success, I hear.
Ignore this signature. By order.
When you exercise a privilege to which you are not entitled, you negate the value of the privilege for those who are entitled to it.
Law, and custom, dicate that the creator of an artistic work is entitled to the privilege of sole distribution rights to that work, and sole rights to profit from the distribution of that work. When you appropriate that work without their permission, they no longer have the privilege granted to them by law. You are, in fact, taking something away from them.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
This reminds me of "The Great Loyalty Oath Crusade" in Catch 22, where all of the pilots had to sign a loyalty oath to the USA at each meal, before each briefing, before take-off, and so on.
Yosarian points out that all that signing makes the oath meaningless. No one reads it or considers it, they do it like they wipe their nose. Catch 22 has a lot to teach us.
Even if I believed in intellectual property (which I don't), I would think this was a silly thing.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
You are right. It is an unfortunate (and regrettably easy) slip to leave out the "without license to distribute" or whatever else is relevant simply because it is presumed by everyone involved. Except for the pedants. When such slips make it into public statements such as the one you quote it is very unfortunate and regrettable because such statements *should* be pedantic.
thoromyr
This is a very simplified argument: copyright isn't just about making money. It is possible someone has produced something they don't want anyone else to see/hear.
Copyright is about protecting the artist against exploitation in exchange for enriching society. I think what is causing problems now is that many people feel that the artists are all being exploited anyway and society isn't being enriched.
Copyright is not about allowing the creator of a work to force scarcity on a market thereby creating larger profit margins for the limited copies sold. This is how copyright is being *abused*.
For example, I doubt I could make money or profit off of this post, but I still hold copyright on it, and reproduction anywhere else still breaks the law in the USA. This includes reproduction on your computer screen, by the way. Slashdot makes a profit off of it by the ads they post on the page, and they reproduce it for anyone interested in reading it. Kinda like artists and recording/production studios and "consumers". Sure there are fine lines and distinctions, but that just proves the point that things aren't as simple as you make them appear.
Funny how question #4 doesn't differentiate between open/free music and commercial record-label music. The answer could be either C or D.
Well, I suppose it could be A or B depending on weird screwed-up license terms.
They left out a few options on these questions:
What is the difference between copying a friend's CD and downloading music?
Copyright protection lasts for:
Two valid points,but I'd be leaning more towards:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
Computer: "is piracy illegal?"
Student: "Yes"
Faculty: "You deliberately did something illegal!"
I would disagree, albeit slightly.
Illegal is defined by society via the law.
Immoral is defined by the individual.
I would agree that there is a distinction that is lost on many.
Morality is a personal matter, in a Kantian sense (i.e., you keep to your own morals, not matter what).
Ethics is a societal matter, and in fact derives from the combined moral stances of a community of like-minded individuals.
Law is the formalization of the ethics of a particularly large group of individuals.
The point is, it all comes down to morals in the end. If enough "moral attitudes" combine into a general system of ethics that grows large enough to matter (call it the "Slashdot Ethics"), then the Law can be changed. Well, that's the idea.