Congress moving forward with plan to scare colleges into supporting RIAA measures

The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns us that H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, is still steaming ahead with its "Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention" that ties college funding to universities' intimidates college administrators into a purchase of DRM-based industry-sanctioned download services and deployment of network snoopware that spies on and disconnects college kids if they appear to be violating copyright (without any hard evidence or a chance for the student to present her side of the story).

These congressional requirements will turn out to be expensive dead-ends -- the industry-sanctioned online music services are laden with DRM, and network detection/filtering programs present privacy risks and are inevitably rendered obsolete by technological countermeasures.

Advocates of the bill stress that the language stops short of demanding implementation -- that it only requires universities to "plan" -- but this argument misses the point entirely. The passage of this bill will unambiguously lead universities down the wrong path. For the sake of artists, administrators, students, and consumers better approaches exist.

The bill also would hang an unspoken threat over the heads of university administrators. In response to concerns that potential penalties for universities could include a loss of federal student aid funding, the MPAA's top lawyer in Washington said that federal funds should be at risk when copyright infringement happens on campus networks. Moreover, earlier versions of "Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention" proposals nakedly sought to make schools that received numerous copyright infringement notices subject to review by the US Secretary of Education.

Link (via /.)

[#1 posted by jawells , January 21, 2008 4:50 AM]

Please note that the EFF also has a page with a sample letter to send to your US representative! There's a handy form to fill out to send an email or you can print it and send a dead tree.

A small action from you can make a big difference!

Link to EFF's action page!

[#2 posted by Ken Hansen , January 21, 2008 7:30 AM]

This seems familiar - what has changed/updated since November?

[#3 posted by z1g1 , January 21, 2008 9:21 AM]

I'm glad that the EFF is getting involved in this issue. However after working in a congressional office over the summer there is a problem with these preprinted e-mail forms. A congressional office will just tally them, to make the message more effective write your own letter, or even copy and paste that text and send it in a physical letter. This can make the message must more effective.

[#4 posted by tim , January 21, 2008 9:51 AM]

This is all just a small part of the War on Knowledge - as soon as these mechanisms are in place in colleges, universities and schools they will be used to pervert, subvert and censor what people are allowed to look at. After a few years of this people will forget there was ever truth outside the official story. They'll even start believing that Faux News has a decent truthiness level.

[#5 posted by Takuan , January 21, 2008 9:57 AM]

you don't have to censor people. Just keep them poor, worried and needy so that simply staying alive takes all their energy. The ideal workforce.

[#6 posted by ill lich , January 21, 2008 12:33 PM]

ahhh. . . so only the richest and most elite colleges can afford to let their students have unfettered internet access. Everyone else who suckles at the teat of government has to toe the line.

[#7 posted by Antinous , January 21, 2008 12:53 PM]

Weyland-Yutani has to start somewhere. Traditional thinking would have suggested the oil companies, but thew RIAA makes sense because it exists to control the flow of communication.

[#8 posted by Takuan , January 21, 2008 12:54 PM]

you mean like it's always been?