House approves MPAA-backed college antipiracy rules
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a higher-education funding bill that includes controversial new antipiracy obligations for universities.
The 354-58 vote to approve the College Opportunity and Affordability Act leaves intact an entertainment industry-backed provision, which makes up just a tiny part of a bill that has ballooned to more than 800 pages.
It says higher-education institutions participating in federal financial aid programs "shall" devise plans for "alternative" offerings to unlawful downloading--such as subscription-based services--or "technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity."
Leading university groups, such as the Association of American Universities and Educause, and fair-use advocates oppose those requirements, arguing they are overly burdensome, potentially expensive, and, at least by their interpretation, leave the implication that schools risk losing their financial aid for failure to comply.
"We reject the contention that campuses play a disproportionate role in the file-sharing problem," Steve Worona, Educause's director of policy and networking programs, said in a statement. "The requirements of the legislation will increase tuition costs and provide no value."
The bill's sponsors, for their part, insist that it's a "myth" that schools will lose financial aid funding if they fail to come up with the requisite plans. But university groups still say that's not the way they read the bill language, arguing that they find it unfathomable that such requirements would carry no penalty.
Major copyright holders, including the Motion Picture Association of America and the American Federation of Musicians, have applauded the provision.
"Piracy hurts ordinary, working musicians, but it also will hurt our nation's culture and its music fans if enough talented and hard working musicians cannot survive in the business," AFM President Thomas Lee said in a recent letter to the committee. "Hopefully, H.R. 4137 will become law and will help educate young Americans about the value and importance of copyright to the artists whose work they love."
It's possible that the section opposed by universities could be stripped out before the bill becomes law. The Senate passed a different higher-education funding bill last year, so the two sides will have to reconcile their differences before sending a final measure to the White House for the president's signature.
The university lobby successfully brought down a more burdensome antipiracy provision in the Senate counterpart bill last year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ultimately yanked a proposal that would have required colleges and universities--in exchange for federal funding--to use technology to "prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property."
University officials don't object to all antipiracy obligations that Congress has proposed. They support a section, which shows up in both the House and Senate versions, that requires colleges merely to advise their students not to commit copyright infringement and to "report to their students annually on their policies and practices with respect to copyright infringement on campus networks."
And not all universities oppose the House bill in its current form. In a letter to the House Education and Labor Committee provided to CNET News.com, University of California Assistant Vice President A. Scott Sudduth said he believes the peer-to-peer file-sharing requirements strike "a reasonable balance between institutions' ability to educate and inform students of their responsibilities regarding copyright law, and institutions' inability to monitor content or control the ever-changing technologies associated with peer-to-peer file sharing."
Executives at Educause, which represents college network managers, argue that the additional obligations are "inappropriate" because their research shows that universities don't actually house a disproportionate part of the piracy problem. Even the MPAA had significantly overstated the damage caused by piracy at the nation's universities.
Update at 4:30 p.m. PST: "Now that the data produced by the MPAA, the lead advocate for this provision, shows that illegal file-sharing by students using university servers is a very small part of the larger file-sharing issue, this provision is the moral equivalent of using a bazooka to kill a fly," said Barry Toiv, a spokesman for the Association of American Universities.
In an attempt to respond to universities' concerns, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) intended to propose an amendment (PDF) to the House bill that would have said no higher-education institution "shall be denied or given reduced federal funding for student loan or other financial aid programs" because of failure to devise an antipiracy plan."
But Cohen ultimately withdrew that amendment because, according to his press secretary, he was dealing with tornado aftermath in his home district and could not be present during a key procedural vote. His press secretary said Thursday that she wasn't sure whether Cohen would attempt to offer the amendment when the House and Senate meet to reconcile differences in their competing bills. Educause, for the record, has said that amendment wouldn't do anything to change its concerns even if adopted.
this claus in the bill is ridiculous...
tee hee
jk...it can happen to anyone
this crap bill is ridikulous
Strange that you seem to think the 'Liberal' is a bad thing. Liberal values are for personal freedoms - not for the massive restriction of personal rights and freedoms that the Republicans have presided over and the election of a moron for your president.
Liberalism refers to a broad array of related ideas and theories of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal.
The complete opposite of Communism and Republicanism.
"Vote republican and Vote for Mike Huckabee for President
becasue he will put the RIAA and MPAA and the Commies and
Liberals in thire place and give the american people back thire
rights."
I guess that says it all right there, now doesn't it. Not only is this
person unable to comprehend that these problems are caused by
repukinazicons, but (s)he's unable to even figure out the spell
checker. Hopefully it's because this person is in elementary
school and is unable to vote.
Maybe a law where every Congress member that wished to vote on a bill voted by writing that bill out by hand and then signing it. Now that would be fun.
If congress actually believed the rheteroic then the answer to this question would be yes. Do you think that Johnny Starving RockStar is on an indie lable is going to get much out of the deal?
The answer is no. Congress is not doing this for the good of the country or the people or the universities. Must be something else they are doing it for the good of.
"Even the MPAA has admitted recently that it had significantly overstated the damage caused by piracy at the nation's universities. "
Basically, they didn't present valid data. In fact, they gave seriously flawed data. Funny how it was tilted their way.
Why are educational administrators supposed to play baby sitters?
Don't get me wrong, I don't illegally download music, nor do I condone it, but I don't want my tax dollars withheld from institutes of higher learning and I don't want my tax dollars wasted on provisions that the schools shouldn't be responsible for implementing.
Once again, Congress proves that it needs education on issues regarding technology.
Oh, by the way, what law-abiding industry were you talking about? The music industry?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1457874/20021001/id_0.jhtml
Payola, price fixing...
I'm not one that normally holds a couple of strikes against individuals, or even organizations, but these guys seem to always be doing something wrong. Don't speak about them as though they're innocent; they're anything but innocent.
From the standpoint of the customer, they want a product, but don't perceive the value to be as high as the music companies perceive it to be. The customer has no choice but to either buy it, or get it in another fashion.
Capitalism rewards a company with growth and money when they provide a customer what they want at the price they want. On the other hand, it punishes the company that ignores the demands of their customer. The member companies of the RIAA have been ignoring their customers for nearly 20 years, and have been continuously forcing them to buy what they don't want. Contrary to popular opinion, nobody wants to be a thief, which is why music companies are still making money; because people still buy the monopolistic product.
What makes your reasoning absurd is that you purport that the natural result of a company not listening to their customer-base should result in laws being passed to lock people into place, and who's going to enforce and pay for this lock? We are. My tax dollars will be spent to help prop up a company that is spitting in the face of capitalism by exploiting its monopolistic position by trying to force feed their customers. No matter how immoral it is to steal music, it does not justify the government stepping in to endorse the stupidity of the RIAA members ignoring their customers.
Ben Franklin said it well; Government should be afraid of the people: People should not be afraid the Government.
Fascism: Is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers the individual subordinate to the interests of the state, party or society as a whole. Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity, usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, racial, religious attributes. The key attribute of fascism is intolerance of others: other religions, languages, political views, economic systems, cultural practices, etc. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: corporatism,
nationalism, statism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, populism, collectivism, autocracy and opposition to political and economic liberalism.
It is time to take back our country and and have those we elect stand up for the people and not for special interest nor any other money grubing groups that want to repress our freedoms.
It is time for us to be heard by all candidates running for office that we will pay reasonable prices for reasonable services, However, threats of lawsuits will cost ALL corporations more losses than they can recover by higher prices.
Through it still not available in Britain, so this just from people who have used it that tell me.
- by DormRoomDude December 16, 2008 6:53 PM PST
- This is a good bill but should not be enforced at the college level, it is not the college responsibility to police the college students. <a href="http://www.dorm-room.com">dorm room supplies</a>
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