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Senate Passes Bill Targeting College Piracy
An anonymous reader brings news that the College Opportunity and Affordability Act has passed in the US Senate and now awaits only the President's signature before becoming law. Hidden away in the lengthy bill are sections which tie college funding to "offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity." The EFF issued a statement expressing concern over the bill earlier this year, shortly before the House of Representatives approved it. We discussed the introduction of the bill last November. The Senate vote was 83-8, with 9 not voting. The full text of the bill is available. The relevant section is 494, at the end of the general provisions.
College piracy really is getting out of hand these days. I just graduate college recently, and it's ridiculous how easy and casual it is.
Copyright infringement is illegal and costs companies money. As a legitimate consumer, I feel duped when others are trading around something I paid good money far.
I'm all in favor of trying to prevent and deter this unlawful activity.
Hidden away in the lengthy bill are sections which tie college funding to "offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity."
I haven't read the bill yet, but that sounds like an attempt to force colleges into hostile partnerships with MPAA/RIAA agencies/affiliates. If that is the case, then I urge the colleges to satisfy the requirement of "offering alternatives" by partnering exclusively with indie, creative-commons, and public domain distributors.
BTW - why in the world do colleges need to be involved in "offering alternatives" when there are dozens of well known websites already offering alternatives. iTunes anyone? Rhapsody? eMusic? If people aren't using these already what makes anyone thing that a college offering the same will suddenly be more successful? It is no business of a college, which people pay to attend, to be factoring into their cost model marketing and/or service costs of music/movie distribution.
The small business I work for provides short term student accommodation (universities here in Belgium don't have dorms like in the States, private companies or student associations organize housing). In one of our residences, 20 students in downloaded 1.2 terabytes in the month of July. The volume causes all kinds of trouble for me as the IT guy because our ISP is perpetually threatening to cut us off if we don't upgrade to $superExpensivePlanOfTheMonth. We all know here that the overwhelming majority of this traffic is p2p.
In other words, I am very sensitive to anti-piracy arguments because I have felt the pain of dealing with it. I have toyed with the idea of putting some sort of traffic shaping technology between the students and the net or limiting their access, but ultimately I have decided to put up with the headache.
This is why: Students need freedom to grow, even if they abuse it at times (or even most of the time). If I implement traffic shaping or limit bandwidth, that one CS student who uses bittorrent to distribute his project will be screwed out of an education, and the world might be screwed out of a really cool innovation. That one aspiring film maker won't be able to distribute the movie that will make her famous and change the world of art. Sooner or later all of those students will be paying for their own bandwidth and they will learn the lesson about how their abuse is hurting the rest of us, but never again in their lives will they have the opportunities to create and learn that they have now, and unfettered access to the net is part of that.
I cannot imagine any kind of traffic control that will not pose these kinds of problems. If we allow schools to shape bandwidth, the quality of the education they offer will suffer. I hope that US universities stand up for what is right on this one.
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