Dave Horvath
12 Nov 2007 12:26
In a 700+ page document submitted before the US Congress, there is a bill that offers some interesting enlightenment as to how deep the MPAA and RIAA are in with congressional lobbying. Within this bill is a provision that offers up what they're calling a "technology based deterrent" for colleges that allow their students to get away with illegal file-sharing. In this bill, it states that if Colleges and Universities wish to keep the federal funding for financial aid that they so enjoy, then they would need to conform with the file-sharing preventative measures outlined in this bill.
The terms in this proposed act state that the schools will be required to inform the students during the financial aid application process of the dangers of file-sharing and their responsibility to help prevent it. The students will also be informed that they will lose said funding if they are caught participating in file-sharing that isn't deemed worthy by the University. In addition, the students will be warned of civil and criminal charges that could be brought up on them should they choose to participate in illegal file-sharing.
The bill does however offer an alternative to P2P downloading. This alternative offers the likes of Napster and Rhapsody as part of an included subscription that of course does not transfer once they leave the University. So, all the songs they download while at school become defunct once they graduate.
The MPAA doesn't see this as a problem. Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said it was a positive step towards thwarting piracy and offered up some unsubstantiated figures to further his cause. "Intellectual property theft is a worldwide problem that hurts our economy and costs more than 140,000 American jobs every year," said Glickman in a statement. "We are pleased to see that Congress is taking this step to help keep our economy strong by protecting copyrighted material on college campuses."
In a letter sent to representatives of this bill, the Association of American Universities did not like this bill in the slightest. In the letter they stated, "The proposal would mandate a completely inappropriate role for the Secretary of Education to single out individual institutions based on information under the control of the entertainment industry, force institutions to seek an unachievable goal of preventing illegal P2P file sharing, and risk the loss of student aid for countless students innocent of any illegal file sharing activity."
Source:
ARS Technica