House Approves Bill To Require Universities To Offer Students Music Services
from the mandatory-Napster? dept
Late last year, we wrote about a bill that would put pressure on universities to put in place an official approved music subscription service or risk losing federal financial aid support for students. This is a bizarre piece of legislation, as it effectively props up Napster and RealNetworks by basically requiring universities to sign up for such a service, even if they don't want to. Despite widespread criticism of the bill, the House has now approved it, even leaving out a promised amendment promising that failure to obey wouldn't threaten financial aid. Supporters of the bill claim that it wouldn't actually be used to cut off financial aid, but if that's the case, why include it in this bill at all? It would basically be a requirement without any repercussions for ignoring. At the same time, no one has clearly explained why universities should be required to sign up for a private music subscription offering. What possible public policy reason could there be for such a thing?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: congress, copyright, file sharing, music subscriptions, universities
Companies: napster, realnetworks
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Re: Public Policy
> to facility illegal behavior?
Well, if that's what you think is the public policy basis for this law, then it's still a mystery why this law is necessary, since the law does nothing to stop illegal file-sharing.
The fact that my university is forced to sign up for Napster doesn't mean I as a student am going to *use* it. I could still just as easily use Bitorrent or Limewire or some other unapproved service.
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Sorry for the small rant but this is just a really stupid law.
In case someone doesn't know, an MSDN subscription allows the user to download pretty much anything made by Microsoft with a monthly fee of about $2000. (It's how I got Vista)
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I didn't do it, the company I work for has one and I was deemed the Vista tester, so I'm not completely sure how but there is a link on the right side to "Find out more".
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Can you explain how this law does that? Because I don't see that at all.
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Less Regulation in Action!
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cant see haow this will work
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Signs you might need new Representatives
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It's only a matter of time before the liquor lobby does the same!
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I'm gunna be RICH!
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@11
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You really don't think free is free, do you?
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Set up
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what a sham
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The inevitable result of a runaway government
There are exactly 18 things that Congress is ALLOWED to do according to the Constitution (Article I Section 8) yet somehow they've managed (at our demand) to insinuate themselves into every conceivable area of life. Section 8 does not include a single mention of music or sports yet we have this absurd law and congressional hearings on steroids in baseball. It says nothing of health care or education yet we have untold numbers of laws regulating (and ruining) those industries. Somehow I don't think that's what Jefferson, Washington, Madison, et. al. had in mind when they crafted our amazing elegant Constitution.
Our country abandoned its constitutional foundation years ago so this should surprise no one.
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Re: The inevitable result of a runaway government
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Re: The inevitable result of a runaway government
> so this should surprise no one.
Very well said.
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Uhm, a bit ridiculous.
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RE: MSDN
Some ppl will never learn!
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whiskey tango foxtrot
At what point does the dumb pipe lose its safe harbors protection? How many services can they pile on before they are liable for their user's actions?
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