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New bill proposed could punish file-sharing students

Written by Dave Horvath @ 12 Nov 2007 12:26 User comments (20)

New bill proposed could punish file-sharing students 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

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20 user comments

112.11.2007 12:36

Wow this article shows how F$%$#$ up our government is. They willing to take financial aid away because of these jokers they are crazy. They only want to hit colleges because they are a easy target. Its easier to blame a group of kids in one place then it is to search for a few scattered across the world. This is ridiculous law being passed.

212.11.2007 12:39

What makes this even worst is they can just accuse anybody in a school of something and then they are making kids lose what they are in school for over some BS they are creating to gain more money. Sad Sad country we live in.

312.11.2007 13:13

This piece of legislative crap adds just another hidden cost to the ever increasing cost of tuition. The colleges will be forced to buy and operate some sort of expensive software to spy on the students , which also traps innocent "dolphins" in its extensive drift net. The litigation nightmare for students and colleges will be enormous. Then the students have to use a music subscription that, we all know, is only like an advertising tool in hopes that the listener will eventually buy the higher quality song at an inflated cost. How can Congress let the entertainment industry force educators to do their bidding? If Congress wants to help the economy, why doesn't it force students to drive only cars produced in the U.S.? If any foreign made car is seen on campus, the student will lose financial aid and the institution will lose federal funding. At least this would save jobs that are worth saving. To the music industry all I can say is, Young people listen and buy most of your music. HELLOOO!

412.11.2007 13:48

New bill proposed Kiss my smelly @**

512.11.2007 15:59

Nothign like telling students that if you think outside the box you will be fined or tossed in jail....
If anyone should be allowed to do this it should be collage students because they are he next generation of work force for the US anything to keep them studeing and relaxed is worth the price.

612.11.2007 16:07

If this stuff cost the American economy 140,000 jobs each year then why did the Congress pass the NAFTA bill way back which sent MILLIONS of jobs overseas? They don't care about the jobs lost, they care about the $$$.

712.11.2007 17:40

The RIAA and MPAA have gone from being a very bad annoyance to a dangerous, destructive cancer in society.

812.11.2007 18:12

Quote:
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.

That pretty much sums it up.

Originally posted by nonoitall:
The RIAA and MPAA have gone from being a very bad annoyance to a dangerous, destructive cancer in society.

Agreed.

912.11.2007 18:24

mlsgiant,

An amen about the North American Fraud and Theft Agreement. This piece of soiled toilet paper absolutely hacks me off. That lying sack of crap Clinton finished the screw job to the U.S. that Bush 41 started.

I hate to get into politics but;

Please don't lump me in with the so-called conservatives that are in the media. I lean more towards Libertarian conservative ideas ala Neal Boortz. (The equal opportunity offender of talk radio and high priest of the church of the painful truth.)

Apologies for the political rant. I probably shouldn't have included the previous paragraph.

Best Regards

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 23 Nov 2007 @ 4:27

1012.11.2007 20:02
AXT
Inactive

You know how else you can keep the economy strong. Investing in education. Which by the way will create more jobs than the MPAA or RIAA will ever hope to create. But who care right? As long as the right people get their money.

1112.11.2007 20:57

Politics aside, I wonder how many of you NAFTA bashers have taken a macroeconomics and/or financial markets class.

1212.11.2007 22:28

Originally posted by oofRome:
Politics aside, I wonder how many of you NAFTA bashers have taken a macroeconomics and/or financial markets class.
Not me, but I think there are a few people that browse these boards that have.

1312.11.2007 23:47

Originally posted by oofRome:
Politics aside, I wonder how many of you NAFTA bashers have taken a macroeconomics and/or financial markets class.
and do tell what good NAFTA has done for the people of the US?
So far its made jobs/plants easier to export and lesser fiens and fees over it.
letting trucks of god knows what(not so much what the truck is carrying but the driver and condition of the truck) from mexico all over the US.

And if thats was not bad enough the brunt of the moeny made from it go to the same corporations that are getting money from playing hot potato with our jobs.


heres the google
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement

From reading between the lines all it dose ti pad the pokects of the multi national firms and companies that don't need any extra money, now with no taxes or fees they can go where ever the cheapest labor is and set up shop, thats never a good idea if you want to slow the decline of the blue color middle class, instead of taking a screw driver and putting a hole in the bottom of a watter barrel and lowering the fees and fines and restrictions they took a axe and let them do what they want.


really its a cheap way out of governing big biz and implementing a better worker immigration setup, they could have redesigned the immigration system and made it work 5X faster with 5X or more people being registered and let in, who needs to come in illagelly to work cheap if we have a working immigration system that takes a month to let someone in.

1413.11.2007 02:29

complete bullshit! complete trash. 140,000 jobs PER YEAR. are you kiddding me!?!? thats crap, that would be covered on the news every fricking day if we were losing jobs that quick. if anything its cuz ppl are quiting from the crappy ass hollywood scene cuz its sucks so much. this is such crap. any riaa, mpaa supporter says is crap and used from skewed statistics and data. screw them all!!

1516.11.2007 21:21

I don't know about you guys, but I'm moving to Europe.

1617.11.2007 00:27

I was listening to Jerry Doyle on the radio tonight and almost wrecked the car. The U.S. defense industry is buying hardware from communist China. Needless to say my anger is so great now I had best conclude this post now because I would end up offending everyone on this forum and be banned from it.

Best Regards

1717.11.2007 00:43

Originally posted by P51ride:
I was listening to Jerry Doyle on the radio tonight and almost wrecked the car. The U.S. defense industry is buying hardware from communist China. Needless to say my anger is so great now I had best conclude this post now because I would end up offending everyone on this forum and be banned from it.

Best Regards
as much as I plug my ears and run away from the right wing talky heads, its true, we have been buying from china and selling off to them and others, the US is now just another consumer nation ripe for the picking whenever a war comes, all it will take is a few weeks without our cheap crap and we will beg the government to disband.....then again...we are begging them to do so now so we can re roll the goverment....LOL

1817.11.2007 01:01

It's utter bullshit that they're trying to do this. I agree that they're becoming a cancer. I expect many more college students to live off campus with their own internet? Still bullshit though what they're trying to do though, the greedy bastards.

1917.11.2007 04:26

Jerry Doyle and Neal Boortz take great delight in offending everyone.

Switching gears.

Here are some interesting links and a premise about Bit Torrent downloading that hasn't been considered by the entertainment industry.

The video is 200 megs in size and in QuickTime file format.

article http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html
video http://www.archive.org/details/PiracyIsGood

Ideas ? Opinions ?

Best Regards

202.12.2007 03:12

the whole smells like crapp. You can not just suddenly change your train of thought it must be that they are like drawing straws and basically have no other ideas to help their cause what says that while they allow students to do this that they just dont alter the law back and bust mass numbers of students. This whole thing smells fishy :P

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