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New TN Law Forces Universities To Patrol For Copyright Violations
CSMatt points with this excerpt from the EFF's page: "Last week, the RIAA celebrated the signing of a ridiculous new law in Tennessee that says: 'Each public and private institution of higher education in the state that has student residential computer networks shall: [...] [R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources, if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year.' While the entertainment industry failed to get 'hard' requirements for universities in the Higher Education Act passed by Congress earlier this year, the RIAA succeeded in Tennessee (and is pushing in other states) with this provision that gives Big Content the ability to hold universities hostage through the use of infringement notices. Moreover, the new rules will cost Tennessee a pretty penny — in the cost review attached to the Tennessee bill, the state's Fiscal Review Committee estimates that the new obligations will initially cost the state a whopping $9.5 million for software, hardware, and personnel, with recurring annual costs of more than $1.5 million for personnel and maintenance."
Who in their right mind would even want to steal country music? You couldn't pay me enough to accept it legally.
TN colleges will need to "cut policing costs" and respond by limiting students' dorm access to 128 kbit/s (or thereabouts) such that downloading music or videos becomes impractical. TN administrators will argue that 128 kbit/s is "good enough" for accessing the required course-related websites (mostly text), and engineering or computer science students will need to apply for a professor-signed waiver to get faster access.
Those students will later come into positions of power, remember the hell of limited dorm access, and then repeal this ridiculous law so future students can access the net unencumbered.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Rednecks, apparently.
how bigoted of you. People in that region listen to more than just country music. They have both kinds of music, country and western.
Hell, we can't even afford the T in Tennessee.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Because when I think Indie, I think Radiohead.
No. However I have observed that my own Netscape dialup connection loads webpages almost as fast as my 750kbit/s DSL line. So the effective speeds are fairly close to one another.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Hey, y'all, git da hail out'n my trailer park! Damn city slickers! Whut's the differnce 'tween a violin and a fiddle?
People LIKES fiddle music!
Free Martian Whores!
Well it sure as heck isn't if you look at torrent populations.
Pop, rap, rock, punk, classical, the freaking Wiggles, etc. are all easier to find than country.
Either it's just not popular, or something about the people that like it keeps them from....
Oh.
Nevermind.