A Fuck'd up Bill - RIAA & MPAA related
DOR
Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
http://www.news.com/Democrats-Colleges-m...tml?tag=st.prev"A bill that threatens to pull federal funding from schools if they fail to implement technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity." 
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.
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.
Comments
fuck em all. those greedy cocksuckers can eat shit. i will never buy another major label release in my life.
fuckin with peoples education!
I have doubts this will go anywhere, but it's amazing that they would even try.
Seriously, do they know how bad they are looking right now?
O RLY?
honestly, whatever, theyre all the same.
Studio's tryin' to cut piracy. They drop prices for DVD's in China.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/07/warner-battle-piracy-cutting
But in the US, the plan is to threaten to cut off funding for higher education for people who can't afford to goto school.
Yeah, most Democrats in both houses (but particularly the Senate) are indistinguishable from Republicans when it comes to bending over for corporations and putting corporate profits over human rights.
OH SHIT! Another Gas Face Victim!
this bill is about human rights?!? oh, and please list the Dems (particularly in the senate) who are indistinguishable from republicans in their voting records.
requiring schools to implement some type of policing for illegal file sharing is a good thing. enforcing that requirement by taking away federal financing for schools that don't implement any type of policing could also be a good thing. tying financial aid to the requirement is a bad idea.
the schools are paying for the policing, so if they fail to do so, in no way should the students be penalized.
Yup. I don't care what your reasoning, it's allowing a private interest group to dictate public education. It's scary that proposals like this even see the light of day.
First of all, i don't even think this is a proposed bill in its final form, let alone a bill that has been voted on and approved by both the house and senate. Second, while i'm sure the RIAA and MPAA (or whatever its called) are in favor of this proposal, i think your jumping the gun if you think the RIAA drafted the legislature and then got some paid stooge in the House to make it a proposed bill. I don't want to beat a dead horse (the RIAA debate), but stealing is still wrong, right? At every university in America there is free high speed internet. I dont think its too much to ask to require that schools take some minimal steps to prevent illegal file sharing. Whether the proposed enforcement penalties are equitable is another story, and I've already said i disagree with penalizing the students.
No, I'm actually pretty much sure that is exactly what happened. Regardless, I don't give a fuck, and if you think any of this legislation or lawsuits is changing the music buying practices of students, you're wrong.
You may already know this, but interest groups draft bill language all the time. Not saying they did here, but it wouldn't surprise me either.
this legislation hasn't been finalized and put up for a vote, let alone passed, so we don't know if it will change the buying practices of students, right???
lawsuits are having NO effect on the music buying practices of students? when did you conduct this study?
Also, schools already have policy's about all this. It doesn't mean they should be blackmailed into policing their networks with everything that goes across them and then give any info the RIAA & MPAA want. Which is exactly what the bill is.
You don't give us the info we want & have every student in your institution sign up for monthly subscription services. We'll make the government take away your funding.
The fucked up part about it is. You have no problem with any of it.
Personal experience plus keeping a close eye on the issue for over five years now. I don't need an academic study to tell me what I already know from the students I encounter on a daily basis.
You are an herb if you're really buying into this RIAA bullshit.
Drug use is illegal but the feds aren't threatening to pull funding for students that snort speed to finish their papers.
Get the fuck outta here.
Wouldn't taking federal funding away from education = punishing students? I also don't understand your point that no one should complain about the proposed legislation until it's been voted on and finalized.
Well, in order for that to change, students would first have to be in the practice of buying music.
Because the final bill might only vaguely resemble the initial proposal. As to taking away federal funding that doesn't effect students? i don't know. the article only touched on financial aid. who knows what sources of federal funding schools get. its not really important. my point is that schools should be encouraged to do some type of file sharing policing considering that they provide unlimited and free high speed internet access to a section of society that is very likely to use illegal file sharing websites.
the proposed penalty (taking away financial aid) is radical, wrong, and will never be passed. we aren't really disagreeing on much here. this just goes back to whether you think illegal file sharing is stealing. i do. but this debate has been beat to death.
do you think this analogy makes any sense? i don't.
PREACH ON BROTHER!!!
Right, I mean in theory the point of all this bullshit legislation is to make the penalties for downloading so severe that non-music buying students will start buying music, which just doesn't happen. There is always a way to get around this shit, and there is so much music already out there on peoples iPods, or being legally distributed through internet sources, that there is no way the RIAA can artificially impose some sort of music shortage that forces people onto iTunes and into record stores.
The only thing that is going to get more students of my generation buying new music is the slow and building cultural backlash against blatant music piracy that makes people want to put money in independent artists pockets.
As for old music, this weekend showed me that there are a lot more young people interested in it at my campus than I thought.
haha