Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else

New federal legislation says universities must agree to provide not just deterrents but also "alternatives" to peer-to-peer piracy, such as paying monthly subscription fees to the music industry for their students, on penalty of losing all financial aid for their students.

The U.S. House of Representatives bill (PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) applauded the proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page spending and financial aid bill. "We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing," said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test "technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity," all of their students--even ones who don't own a computer--would lose federal financial aid.

The prospect of losing a combined total of nearly $100 billion a year in federal financial aid, coupled with the possibility of overzealous copyright-bots limiting the sharing of legitimate content, has alarmed university officials.

"Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid--including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy," a letter from university officials to Congress written on Wednesday said. "Lower-income students, those most in need of federal financial aid, would be harmed most under the entertainment industry's proposal."

The letter was signed by the chancellor of the University of Maryland system, the president of Stanford University, the general counsel of Yale University, and the president of Penn State.

They stress that the "higher education community recognizes the seriousness of the problem of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing and has long been committed to working with the entertainment industry to find a workable solution to the problem." In addition, the letter says that colleges and universities are responsible for "only a small fraction of illegal file sharing."

The MPAA says the university presidents are overreacting. An MPAA representative sent CNET News.com a list of campuses that have begun filtering files transferred on their networks, including the University of Florida (Red Lambda technology); the University of Utah (network monitoring and Audible Magic); and Ohio's Wittenberg University (Audible Magic).

For each school taking such steps, the MPAA says, copyright complaints dramatically decreased, in some cases going from 50 a month to none.

[_t3h]

Why the hell is this allowed to happen?

&gt;The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) applauded the <br />&gt;proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page spending and <br />&gt;financial aid bill<br /><br />Why the hell is slipping in a completely unrelated set of proposals <br />into a 700 page document legal? And why should taxpayers have to <br />pay for the policing of a private company's desires?

[Phillep_H]

"Allowed"?

It's against "the rules", but there is no provision for blocking it or for the courts to act. <br /><br />Only the President would be in a position to do something about this sort of thing, if he had a line item veto.

[mw13068]

This is disgusting. Someone is being paid-off big time.

I wouldn't be surprised if the MPAA is not only "very much in support of the language" but actually wrote it and paid-off the bill sponsors to include it.<br /><br />Higher Education is *not* the biggest problem the MPAA and the RIAA have. Most illegal file sharing is travelling over consumer broadband networks.<br /><br />Higher Ed. is just low hanging fruit. <br /><br />Threatening to take away financial aid for entire institutions if they don't jump through the Media Mafia's hoops?!<br /><br />WHAT THE F$#@ is our corrupt government doing?!<br /><br />This proposed law is *not* in the American public's best interest!<br /><br />Contact information for your representatives can be found on this site:<br /><br /> w w w . h o u s e . g o v<br /><br />Give them HELL.

[richto]

Thats what happens if you live in a corrupt Banana Republic like the USA.

I guess you better hope that someone invades you and imposes some real democracy quick time! After all its easy to justify with all those WMD that you have over there...

[feliusrex]

No more hidden laws

Probably the most offensive thing about this bill is the fact that it's buried in an appropriations measure. It's time to make congress (they don't deserve a C) do their job honestly. No more policy stuck in spending bills. Period. Spending bills must be single subject: appropriations. I'm really sick of hearing my congressional jack-ass give me the cop out, "I didn't vote for _that_ I voted for the spending measure that gives more funds to rescue undernourished sea cucumbers in the Bering Straights."

[XoneDaGnome]

or else?

"According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test "technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity," all of their students--even ones who don't own a computer--would lose federal financial aid."<br /><br />Are you nuts!! Pulling Federal Financial Aid, would cause universities to lose attendance, and that loss would filter down to the towns and city's that host them to lose money from students and parents. This would also filter to smaller colleges and Technical schools, which would give Fast-food a boost in employment. <br /><br />But hey, lets look on the bright side, their would be 75% boost in CDL Licensees, cause the Fed Aid package probably wouldn't affect them. <br /><br />Democrats? Where do you think your Interns get money from for their education... Favors?

[R. U. Sirius]

The Democrats Now Lost...

...an entire generation, and probably the 2008 elections. Brilliant move.

[georgiarat]

Democrats & Republicans are Lost

Let's face it. Both parties are so beholden to the monied <br />interests that the average person has no chance. Until we <br />establish and support an independent party that has the <br />interests of the citizen at heart nothing will change. I wish we <br />students would seriously consider issues and ideas that were <br />good for the country rather than what too many faculty feed us <br />and lead us into believing. Sometimes I have to believe they <br />get together and laugh at how easy it is to make us look like <br />sheep. <br /><br />Where is Congress threatening the Verizon's, AT&#38;T, and <br />Comcasts of the world? They won't because of the <br />contributions! Perhaps as students we should refuse to work in <br />campaigns going door to door in winter, the heat, rain and <br />wind for people who will only stab us in the back. <br /><br />They need to tell the RIAA and MPAA to develop reasonable <br />models for the digital world.

[tbuccelli]

both are corrupt

The thing is, both Democrats and Republicans are beholden to special interests. It is just that many supporters of Democrats seem to think _ALL_ of the ills are the fault of Republicans - maybe now they will see crooks are on the Left as well as the Right.

[Phillep_H]

Not 2008

Not enough college students voters to make a difference. All noise, not depth.

[nicmart]

Among the enumerated rights

Like Ron Paul, I hunt in vain for the right of congress to control <br />university music decisions among the enumerated rights in the <br />constitution. The government is now a fearsome master and must <br />be brought to heel.

[thinkjered]

They think they've seen lawsuits....

If the RIAA think they've waged big lawsuits, just wait until the first class action from university students who've lost their funding through no fault of their own is filed. Then the feds will have a REAL legal situation on their hands. Imagine it: The federal government, trying to wage a legal battle against students to whom they promised a university education, and the recording industry, for whom they promised to enforce this silly measure. Between a rock and a rock. Awesome.

[Brentbb0]

God help us all

If the government continues this assault against the rights of its citizens in the name of enforcing the property rights, intellectual or otherwise, of a special interest group of campaign contributing business thugs, I don't think we will need to worry so much about terrorists coming at us from the outside; we are going to have them manifesting from within.<br /><br />First came the Oklahoma City bombing after the federal government's disgusting response to Waco. Next may come something similar to a building operated by our friends in the RIAA. Of course, the Feds will then clamp down even harder on our civil and privacy rights, which will bring another escalation, and so on. God help us all.

[lingsun]

It's about time they stopped this

Colleges should've been forced to stop copyright violations a long time ago. Too many young people think all music and software should be free. I'm sure a lot of leftist professors think the same thing. Funny how they don't think someone stealing from them is OK.

[Russell McOrmond]

Can't be done in technology.

The simple fact is that it is impossible to determine in a technologically automated way the difference between creativity and copyright infringement. The tools used to record, edit and distribute are identical. What this is asking for is the impossible, with the only possible reaction being to ban certain types of creativity on campus.<br /><br />It is also total nonsense to call this "stealing", as Thomas Jefferson said many years ago.<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate" target="_newWindow">http://www.digital-copyright.ca/Jefferson_Debate</a><br /><br />I wish current politicians were as modern in their thinking about intangible exclusive rights like copyright and patents as Thomas Jefferson was in 1813.<br /><br />This issue has nothing to do with left-vs-right, but right-vs-wrong, and those who support this or related bills are simply wrong.<br /><br />Then again, as a Canadian I should be supporting ways in which the US government wants to put US students at a competitive disadvantage to Canadians in the new economy ;-)

[pjhenry1216]

at what point

Copyright Infringement != stealing. If you think so, then you're horribly misinformed and misguided. I refuse to listen to the opinions of anyone on copyright infringement if they continue to refer to it as stealing. There is no way to make an analogy between copyright infringement and the theft of physical property. It's apples and oranges. The only people who look at it as theft are people who want to work just once in their life and continue to get paid for it for the rest of their lives.

[Machaira]

You're an idiot

Colleges aren't the entities breaking the law so they shouldn't be <br />held responsible and neither should those students who aren't <br />doing anything besides attending the same school as others who <br />are conducting illegal activity. And what is it with this "leftist <br />professor" crap? Get your head out of your ass and do some real <br />research, maybe actually attend a class or two.

[Dr. B]

Stopping Copyright Infringment good, but this idea isn't

Stopping people from violating copyright is good. However, forcing <br />colleges to provide alternate sources of music, like this bill would <br />do, is really, really bad.

[digitalshaman]

"THEY" AKA COLLEGE REGIME CHANGE???

Who is "they"? If "they stopped this" let "they" pay for it! Why <br />haven't "they" not stopped it "themselves"? <br /><br />I think "they" should provide the numbers "they" retrieve <br />DIRECTLY to the "artists" -- then "we" can all see what the real <br />problem is.<br /><br />"My" tax dollars should not be wasted on this foolish exercise. <br /><br />You want people to consider the ALLEGED HARM THEN LET THE <br />SUN DISINFECT YOUR AGENDA!!!

[Ryan83189]

Do you illegally download music?

Do you illegally download music? No. Stereotypically you do, so you must. So we are going to make a law that says if your ISP , who has carrier status BTW, must make it difficult for you to download music. They must also provide free music at their expense. If THEY don't comply we will take away YOUR mortgage , because after all, most loans come from the federal government. It's a little different when you see it that way.

[mw13068]

you're misinformed

Illegal downloading starts when kids are in grade school. They get no education about copyright from their parents, and then they come to colleges/universities who DO take copyright very seriously.<br /><br />Usually the first education that students get about copyright infringement occurs when they get to college. Because colleges have organized materials and programs to educate students about copyright. They don't condone copyright infringement any more than YOU do.<br /><br />As I said in a previous comment, MOST illegal file sharing travels over commercial broadband networks, not College networks.<br /><br />If the Entertainment Mafia want to actually cut down on copyright infringement, then they should go to Comcast and TimeWarner and try to force them to educate their users. Comcast and Timewarner are too powerful, and would slap them silly. So they try to go after Higher Ed.<br /><br />They're trying to do this to supplement their failing business models by forcing their lame services to be purchased by institutions who don't want them.<br /><br />This bill, if it becomes law, will have a hugely detrimental effect on higher education in the United States.

[Andy kaufman]

Democrats have done this in the past

they supported the original DMCA Act under Clinton that gave the MPAA and RIAA "fascist" powers to begin with that allowed them to sue anyone they even suspected of pirating their material and tried to reverse the MPAA vs. BetaMax case that made it 100% legal to videotape movies off of your TV set.<br /><br />If you want to fight these copyright fascists, vote Republican in 2008, because the Democrats are fascists when it comes to copyright. Republicans don't care about file sharing networks and don't actively seek to shut them down or sue people for using them like the Democrats are doing.

[Machaira]

What are you smoking?

Yah, thats a real good reason to vote for somebody. Last time I <br />checked the Republicans were just as much in the pocket of the <br />corporations if not more so than the so called Democrats. the <br />Democrats may have given the RIAA "fascistic" powers but the <br />Republicans gave the president "fascistic" powers. Which do you <br />think is a bigger concern? Oh wait...that's right you already <br />answered that, your music listening rights.

[digitalshaman]

THE DMCA WAS ENACTED BY A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS

what a misinformed boob! the MCA v. Sony decision (5 v 4) was <br />decided under Reagan and the Sony Bono Act was passed by a <br />Republican Congress and the Eldred decision decided by a <br />COnservative Sup Ct.<br /><br />Get your facts straight --

[matthewcsims]

Yeah Sure.

Like Republicans don't have anything to do with this. Does Sen Orin Hatch ring any bells? Or any of the other republicans that have voted the exact same way on such bills? How exactly is that suppose to help? Doesn't matter which way you vote when both sides are paid off.<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2003/06/59305" target="_newWindow">http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2003/06/59305</a>

[umbrae]

Both Parties suck...

And have done many evil things to this country. Vote for neither party. Its hard to tell Donkey's from Elephants these days since they switched sides so many times.

[lawrencewinkler]

Stop being Consumers

I have no sympathy for either side, music industry or students. <br />I'm sure most kids in college think they're going to change the <br />world for the better, and do all these great right things, in <br />contrast to their parents and grandparents, who certainly <br />seemed to have screwed up in every imaginable way.<br /><br />But, the students are delusional if they think they can make a <br />positive difference; their gluttony seems to even surpass their <br />parents and grandparents. And from the perspective of being of <br />the baby-boomer generation, gluttony is the root cause of the <br />problems we face, and that the student generation is going to <br />need to solve.<br /><br />The RIAA has all the power because the students are gluttonous, <br />-- students have no control OVER THEMSELVES. Okay, music <br />pleasant and all, but really, the uncontrollable need to download <br />legally or illegally or purchase the CDs is quite pathetic. It <br />certainly leaves RIAA with all the cards. And frankly, music is <br />just not important! If music is important, make the music <br />yourself, and listen and support your local musicians and artists. <br /><br />On the economic side, the issues are simply a matter of supply <br />and demand. The demand is obscene, and therefore the RIAA <br />can dictate the terms at every level: government, universities, <br />etc. Students need to learn to say NO.<br /><br />Learn to say NO to gluttony, and the RIAA problems simply <br />disappear, the cost to universities disappears, financial aid <br />issues disappear, litigation costs disappear, copyright issues <br />disappear. Money, time and resources can then be spent on <br />things that are important.

[GBram1981]

What?

Are you actually reading what you're tying? It sounds more like you're a very disgruntled old man who has a grudge against an entire generation. You're on here saying how the entire current young generation are "gluttonous" and how we have no control over ourselves? You are incorrect on both points. You also call the "the uncontrollable need to download legally or illegally or purchase the CDs is quite pathetic"? Maybe someone should send you back to school on art, how music plays a role in it, and how it has been important to every society since man first learned about musical tones. Another incorrect note is that the RIAA does not hold all the cards. There is a constitution for a reason, and part of it is protecting the people of this nation from corporations, private businesses, and so forth. Finally how DARE you question anyone in this generation can make a positive difference in society. The people of this generation can accomplish just as much, if not more, than what you baby boomers accomplished. Many of our global problems stem from incidents in your generation, by the way, that we are going to have to fix in our generation. You may be a senior, and elder to many on this site, but you show no class or respect to an entire generation of people whom many are working hard every day for a better tomorrow. How dare you try to lessen that with your begrudging words. You are a senile old man, and earn no respect from myself, and hopefully nor from anyone else on here.

[unknown unknown]

Political suicide

If this passes I hope they have to explain to parents why their children's college careers were sold out over the interests of large copyright holders. If the republican were smart they'd be pounding the democrats over this.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Colleges should sell music to their students

Educational establishments have good resources to offer all sorts of data services to their students.<br /><br />Anyway their you are at college.<br />you access a low watt CPU drive thats active inside the college super computer to do some work on.<br /><br />It loads onto its flash drive the work your continuing with.<br /><br />Anyway your designing this new age packman game that uses simulations of viruses to make up the sprites.<br /><br />In order to do this your workload morphs onto two diffrent OS systems. One to run the workload demand script the other to do the high end calculations (your college has worked out it's more efficient to do it this way as the VMware handles the super computer operations better than the microsoft cloud OS system on its own would.<br /><br />little does the admin group know but you've implanted a virus into the managment script and it's a piticularly nasty one.<br /><br />it's like this see<br />because you'de have to wait 3 years to do 1/32 of the workload you really intend to make your game not to mention the added processing time needed to simulate that Amoeba for the end level you've made a virus that gets you enough Processing horse power by accessing loads of diffrent colleges total power all at once.<br />Unfortunitly you've overid a lot of the power conservation systems to achieve it and just spiked the already overloaded power grid and caused a major problem to the US power grid.<br /><br />You see things could be worse than just a few students downloading poor choices in music.

[shoffmueller]

Get this guy an english class, quick!

Dude, that is simply unreadable.

[czorrilla]

It's time to go for a thrid party option

Republicans and democrats work only for the big companies, only difference is democrats pretend to work for the people while republicans are in your face about their big business. Wake up America teach this bastards a lesson an let's claim back our country.

[fokwp]

Universities, digital rights industry's new beast

Ownership is only what you can make of it. People will sell you an acre on the moon, but how are you going to make that real?<br /><br />Universities are here seen as beasts to be harnessed by the digital rights management industry to take digital rights ownership to a new level of reality and solidity (oh, and profitability, almost forgot that one . . .) Use federal tax (student loan) money to leverage profits to yet another industry . . .

[mikalg]

Now THAT is just STUPID

Stupid. Need I say anything else? Not even worth my time writing an argument. <br /><br />Yet another reason to abolish these types of earmarks. Want your GOOD legislation passed? Well you have to accept my BS idea along with it!<br /><br />I would love to know who these "Democrats" writing this swill are.

[bschmidt25]

Unbelievable

Just when you think you've seen it all, this comes along. Aren't these the same democrats that beat the drum of education constantly, saying they are the only ones that care about making it more accessible. Yet this introduce this crap saying that if the RIAA/MPAA busts you, your financial aid will be lost. The party of the little guy? Please... Who do you think this is going to affect most? Both parties are lost - they are both in the pockets of big corporations and this is just one more example.

[gerardogerardo80]

Action and reaction.

I hope these dudes know what are they doing, while universities can not get rid of all the bugs they have in their mail servers, (I know who gets at least 50 spams and scams a day from USC mail servers which are in complete control of hackers) they pretend they will control file sharing, these Universities are not sitting on roses, they have to fight hackers and all kind of attacks on top of that they have to police p2p.<br /><br />If these hackers decide to use all these servers to launch and attack, to all this parties including the senators involved in this bill, they will realize that p2p is monster too big, and the parties involved are way more intelligent than the creators of the bill.<br /><br />The recording industry does not own the internet to restict and control. So far looks like the DOJ has treated this as bad static.<br /><br />Anyway the Recording Industry has stollen millions from performers for many years, 20s,30s,40s names like Billie Holiday that still sell records did not get paid royalties.<br /><br />And to be fair, then all distributions channels including UPS, USPS and every other delivery system should be regulated and policed the same way to please RIAA. <br /><br />I understand the Senate wants to kiss the hands of the Master but in this case they have a lot at risk, even when the master owns tha media that creates public opinion.<br /><br />Even if they filter p2p protocols it will only create a new better way to share files, torrents are used to share legal content. It sounds like RIAA is going to lose more money, and there is a question in my mind and if any one has and answer please let me know.<br /><br />Do yo think after you stop a person from getting a song from PSP for free, that same person will go and buy a CD ?

[bassprocm]

mac and linux users must not matter

It makes me laugh when academic/political leaders offer great solutions to piracy <br />through programs like Napster and Ruckus (my college has tried both). One problem: <br />These programs aren't compatible with OS X or Linux! <br /><br />If the government is going to ride the line of taking away our fourth amendment <br />rights by requiring colleges to monitor their Internet traffic and then substantiate <br />such an action through the utilization of Ruckus or Napster, then at least come to the <br />realization that not everyone runs a Windows platform computer and that therein this <br />really isn't an effective solution across the board (as of yet).

[Ryan83189]

"LINUX, sounds rebellious... shut it down"

Ruckus for mac/linux.