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July 30, 2008, 03:24 PM ET
Recording and Movie Industries Win Out Over Colleges in Higher-Education Bill
In the longstanding battle between the higher-education community and the entertainment industry over how aggressive colleges should be in trying to stop the swapping of music and video files over campus networks, the entertainment industry has prevailed.
The industry triumphed in pushing through a provision in the renewal of the Higher Education Act that would force colleges to use “technology-based deterrents” to curtail the ability of students to share copyrighted works using peer-to-peer networks. The industry also succeeded in attaching language to the bill that would force colleges “to the extent practicable” to offer students music and video through subscription-based services such as Ruckus Network Inc. Negotiators for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate reached agreement on the bill Tuesday night.
Educause, a higher-education technology group, had taken the lead in trying to prevent the proposals from making it into the bill. The group says students do not want to use or pay for subscription-based music services. The group also argues that computer tools to deter copyright infringement, like Audible Magic’s CopySense, are expensive and don’t always work.
A congressional report accompanying the bill makes the copyright provision more palatable, says Mark A. Luker, vice president of Educause. The report says that packet-shaping software to detect which students are hogging too much bandwidth—often the result of swapping music files—is an acceptable “technology-based deterrent.” Many colleges use this technology.
The report also states that lawmakers “intend for each institution to retain the authority to determine what its particular plans for compliance” with the provision will be “including those that prohibit content monitoring.”—Andrea L. Foster
Categories: Campus-Piracy
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