Would Congress Withhold Financial Aid From Colleges That Don't Offer A Subscription To Napster?
from the slippery,-slippery-slopes dept
It looks like the media companies are making good on the strategy they floated in June (and seems to have been mulling since at least March). A relatively well-buried section of this year's amendment and extension of the Higher Education Act places new requirements on schools whose students receive federal student aid — requirements that oblige them to lend Hollywood and the record companies a helping hand in their fight against P2P piracy. Needless to say, this is ridiculous. As Carlo's post argues, there's no reason why schools ought to be conscripted into propping up a troubled industry's business model.As you might expect, the copyfighters are incensed by the idea. Fortunately, it doesn't look like the bill (pdf) is quite as bad as they're making it out to be: though the idea may be detestable, its execution in this case is less-than-complete. An affected institution is only required to "make publicly available to their students and employees the policies and procedures related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials" and to "develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity" — and only to do so "to the extent practicable". It sure sounds like these provisions could be easily satisfied: posting regulations and drawing up a plan (but not necessarily implementing it) simply isn't that much of a regulatory burden. Is it a bad idea? Yes. Is it going to result in swarms of penniless scholars trudging, broken-hearted, away from the academy and toward a lifetime of menial toil? It seems unlikely.
Still, it would be a mistake to ignore the inappropriateness of the requirements, or the slipperiness of the slope we're presently on. This is, after all, an industry that's perfected the art of regulatory capture to such an extent that it could now be better described as regulatory taxidermy. If congress can be convinced to repeatedly hand our copyright system over to industry, there's little reason to doubt that it's willing to throw in the education system, too.
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Filed Under: congress, copyright, music, subscriptions, universities
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STUPID
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Pee 2 Pee
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school
This is exactly what my final paper is suppose to be about. the funny part is it that it is an intro computer class.
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Maybe so
I've read the section indicated and it seems to put a lot of research money and grants in the hands of schools (and student researchers). Normally, research predicates growth in business and conversely, if you eliminate research, you choke business.
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Time for tech-dirt to learn a new tune?
While I agree with you on this, Tech dirt do seem to be throwing it about a little too freely these days, almost as if its a catch-all justification for filesharing.
A little more variation on analysis would be nice.
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Re: Time for tech-dirt to learn a new tune?
>throwing it about a little too freely these days, almost
>as if its a catch-all justification for filesharing.
First off, sharing of files is not illegal, therefore it needs no justification. And I know you used the "almost as if" qualifier, but no where in this article, or in any of his articles for that matter, does Mike justify illegal file sharing. If you read Tech Dirt and hear "illegal file sharing is OK" when it never says that, then that's your problem.
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Re: Re: Time for tech-dirt to learn a new tune?
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That's why we are elected - and history will remember us as GREAT statesmen, not corporate robber barons.
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hmm...
The bigger issue to me: What does this have to do with education? I don't see any link, other than both have something to do with humans.
This would almost be reversing the policies that many universities have that says that a company cannot come on campus and market themselves. When a wireless carrier set up a booth in the University Center last term, they were given the option of leaving immediately, or dealing with the police, because if they were allowed to stay, it would be like saying the University endorses "x-brand" over others. But if they have to provide an alternative music source, than that would be like saying "we support iTunes over Napster" or vice versa. There are many legal outlets for copyrighted materials, and the government has no place telling a school that they must pick one to provide to their students (or find and provide all of them), when school is not about music. That is like saying that the students going to the school are too stupid to decide whether to do something illegal or not... If they know it's illegal (which they do), and want to do it anyway, the school providing alternatives is not going to stop the copyright infringer... it'll just make the school get a false sense of security about what their student population is doing in their free time.
I have alot more on the subject about why it won't work, and why it's a waste of time, and why this requirement is entirely inappropriate... but I'm getting irritated just thinking about it... I'll let the rest of you have at it now.
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Government Whores
Now, I'm not stupid enough to believe that things like this haven't been going on for generations, and it has, quite frankly, become a more of our society. If that doesn't scare everybody shitless, then I don't know what will. Put some honest to God, whatever god you worship, thought into this for a moment and I'm sure you'll see why.
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Camel's nose, Mike...
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WTF?
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Now the RIAA can sue the colleges
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6: If you agree with the point, I'm not sure why you're insisting that we re-argue it. Anyone who's paid any attention to the content industry over the last half-decade is acutely aware of the trouble it's had adapting to the internet age. I don't see why it's necessary to endlessly rehash that point.
14: On what basis do you think the RIAA/MPAA will be able to file suits against schools?
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