Congress wants to force Universities to filter file sharing or else? Do you agree?

Question

I got this from Politics, but I think it is applicable to the music section as well. Please read:

http://www.news.com/Democrats-Colleges-must-police-copyright%2C-or-else/2100-1028_3-6217943.html?tag=st.prev

This new law would cut all federal loans/grants to all students at any university that fails to comply. Is that right?

Answer 1

I used to work in technical support for a university, and I can tell you this is a very serious problem. Colleges are a haven for pirated material, especially music. You might think that innocently running BitLord on your machine and downloading music shouldn't be a problem, but you are neglecting the fact that almost EVERY student will be doing this. Originally, we had no plan to deal with this traffic where I worked, we really didn't care. But over time, it took up a lot of network bandwidth, and we had the RIAA breathing down our necks telling us to stop the activity, or they'd subpoena us for information on who these students are, and start bringing them to court. Later on we installed filters that would show us the names and sizes of files, as well as which two machines were doing a transfer. Students that violated university policy were banned from the network, they had to go to the Office of Information and Technology and attend a 40 minute class on file sharing before they were allowed back on. Three time offenders were banned permanently (making schoolwork all but impossible if you rely on the university's internet).

Let's state the problem: students are sharing copyrighted material free of charge (this is illegal). The RIAA wants it stopped. They are putting their problem on the universities, and if the universities want funding they'll step to action. I see no problem with this.

In the past, the RIAA made threats that went unheeded, and now they need some leverage. It costs them a lot of money to track down this activity and put a stop to it.

Answer 2

cutting all aid is a little extreme... but I do agree that Universities should filter file sharing... a University is supposed to be a place of learning... and not even taking into account that if it's a share of copyrighted material it is illegal.. it burns up the bandwidth and hinders research by those actually trying to do research online. If people want to download files and burn up bandwidth they should get their own ISP.

Answer 3

I would call this a slippery slope. They want to start with this. Then Newt Gingrich can implement his anti-internet program.