New bill would punish colleges and students who don't become copyright cops Everyone needs to take a minute and read this. This is by far one of the most heinous bills the MPAA and RIAA have brought to congress. It has by far the most possibility of doing mass damage to our countries students and future leadership.
I have taken the time to write and send an email to my local rep, I would recommend you do the same. you can find information about whom your representative(s) are by going
here TO: Representative so_and_so
I strongly oppose the provision in the Higher Education Act reauthorization that coerces schools to subscribe to music services.
Students don't use these services even when offered:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115214899486099107-4koEM2AYbcLWDhm57GdUM8DBs1M_20070705.html They are expensive ($3/student/month at minimum taken from:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040512/1118201_F.shtml .) That money is either going to come from students, via fees (and college is expensive enough already,) or from school programs that actually have educational value.
These programs are not successful because they are too restrictive:
The music stops working when you graduate.
You can't backup to media.
You can't put it on your iPod.
They often only work on-campus.
Among the students that ARE file sharing, which I believe is a fraction and minority among students, the programs the interest groups are recommending will not sway those students that are using other methods of file-sharing.
Trying to stop illegal file-sharing is a fine goal, but this bill won't do it. It is just a big hand-out to the special interest groups at the expense of students and universities.
This bill opens the door to granting police like power to a special interest group, an agency that has no government oversight! This may allow the special interest group to specify what services will be used at a private institutions network, involving costs that could scale in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per institution, or risk losing government education programs!
What happens to the rights of students using legitimate file sharing services? Technological measures can be costly and are not always effective:
i.e. they may not block all illicit traffic, while preventing some legitimate traffic from going through.
This bill punishes the rights of the many, while discouraging the actions of the few.
Colleges and universities should not be forced to do the interest groups dirty work, especially since current copyright law, including the DMCA, gives the people several avenues by which they can enforce their copyrights. If special interest groups believe that changes need to be made, then congress should not trump the current laws that are in place including, but not restricted too, the DCMA.
If file-sharing is commonplace on college campuses, and interest groups have yet to present concrete evidence that it is, universities shouldn't be treated any differently than other internet service providers. If ISP's are given a gatekeepers pass on what its constituents do, then why would universities networks be any different? Their rolls are uniquely the same!
This bill allows the power of a special interest group to destroy higher education where it counts the most, among middle and lower class income families.
I quote Association of American Universities:
"We urge the Education and Labor Committee to reject the entertainment industry's proposal as it crafts its bill to reauthorize the HEA,"
"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."
Do what is best for your constituents, not for the vocal special interests.
Signed,