July 30, 2008
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
Posted on Wednesday July 30, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Andrea – you got it all wrong. If I were the entertainment industry I would be pretty embarrassed that all I got for all the lobbying effort and campaign contributions was a “plan” and making colleges be the marketing arm for products that students don’t want. They keep aiming at the wrong target – the general public and the commercial ISPs are the real problem – that and the need to finally respond to want their cutomers want (ITunes passed the 5 billion mark this past spring). duh!
— redwood Jul 30, 12:35 PM #
We may be the wrong target but we’re the easy target, so it’s simpler for them to focus their lobbying dollars on higher ed. Don’t shoot the messenger here; it was a fair report.
— Adrian Jul 30, 05:07 PM #
Wow. Forcing colleges to offer subscriptions. Whats next? Corporations? :) I bet they won’t go after those since the big execs will be pissed off and likely file lawsuits. Yes, college students are easy targets. However, a few of those college students may be CEO’s of large corporations one day. They will certainly remember what the music and movie industry did to their alma mater.
I don’t know what the beef is since music is already shared in the form of youtube and through other means. With an iphone, you can listen to a music video through a social networking site while the person drives or jogs. Share movies? College campuses have movie nights and students watch movies together. Peer to Peer networks are not the only means of sharing and peer to peer networking happens all the time :). College students will always find a way.
— Frank Jul 30, 06:17 PM #
In this case, Congress was simply following (at least metaphorically) Tommy Lasorda’s dictum: Never argue with someone who buys ink by the gallon.
— BobP Jul 31, 08:10 AM #
This will be a disaster for already overburdened IT departments struggling to deliver cutting edge technology as part of the research and education mission of the university. Now we will all become enforcers and marketing agencies for the movie and music industries. They go after colleges and Universities as one commenter noted, because we don’t have huge teams of lawyers able to battle them, and Congress has once again rolled over for their contributors.
— Allie Jul 31, 09:20 AM #
Let’s see, Congress writes a bill in which the multi-zillion dollar, politically connected entertainment industry gets its way over the non-profit world of higher ed. I’m shocked! Shocked!
Aside from the fact that the recording and movie industries have pulled the wool over the public’s eyes about the economic impact of illegal downloads (rock stars still seem to be…uh, living like rock stars), are we to believe that it’s only college students who share MP3’s? And if the students are doing it, it’s the college’s fault?
And somehow Congress bought this…
— DS Jul 31, 09:48 AM #
It’s quite obvious that file sharing is the biggest crisis we, as a nation face today and we are so very lucky that our elected officials have heeded the warnings of the music and movie industries to save us from ourselves!
— Dave Aug 2, 07:54 PM #
With the war in Iraq nearly wrapped up, and Osama bin Laden close to being brought to justice (in GW’s dreams) our country’s leadership no longer has to focus on the war on terrorism.
With this new bill, the focus is now a war on “share-o-ism”.
The goal is to protect big money (political contributions) at the cost of average Americans.
In today’s economy, movies & music (entertainment) are luxuries that many can no longer afford following the age old marketing models.
Heaven forbid that the Movie and Music industries will think out of the box and present a new model that is compatible with today’s technological strides.
They don’t have to when they are in the back pockets of Congress.
Tom
— Tom S. Aug 8, 11:16 AM #