College Funding Bill Passes House, P2P Provision Intact

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the College Opportunity and Affordability Act passed through the House today with a vote of 354-58 and the anti-P2P provision is intact. That provision would require universities to filter P2P and to offer legal alternatives. They are claiming now, though, that universities would not lose federal funding if they fail to do this. Of course, an amendment that would have clarified that was withdrawn immediately after it was offered."

E Pluribus Denarium

[Stanistani]

Our young adults are learning an important lesson - money talks.

GOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

Colleges are for education, not filling your ipod with illegally downloaded music. Any students who think this is the most important issue in education are sadly ill-informed.

What's needed for this madness to stop

[KublaiKhan]

We need to find a way to make P2P distribution models legitimately profitable for the corporations that lobby in Washington for these asinine laws. I was under the impression that the Warcraft folks already had some kind of a P2P model going for distributing their patches and suchlike--perhaps other companies could be induced to do the same?

Elsewise, it might become very popular and profitable to set up some kind of P2P-friendly VPN service, with endpoints just outside the DMZ of various college networks...

Students will pirate music, yet buy $60 games

[Anonymous Coward]

I find many students to be very hypocritical. They'll rant and rave how buying music makes them poor, then they'll go out and literally spend $1000 on video games. I've seen some students which the shelf is full of video game boxes.

I think this is a push in the right direction, even though its horribly wrong the way it was pushed through via the bill.

"Legal alternatives"

[DragonWriter]

That provision would require universities to filter P2P and to offer legal alternatives.

Since P2P filesharing is legal (though sharing particular files may not be), and there are no other alternatives with the same features, this seems to be nonsense.

Re:GOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps you havent been to college yet, but the students actually live there. a good deal of time is spent not studying, for example after they're done studying.

a college is not a classroom.

Re:Students will pirate music, yet buy $60 games

[reidconti]

Yes, clearly these are the same people complaining about not being able to afford music. Bravo.

Free speech considerations....

[CodeShark]

So, now the Federal government is supposed to require institutions to deny my free speech rights, by setting up filtering regimes that may or may not allow me to share copyrighted materials peer to peer-- even if I own the copyright on the stuff I am sharing.

Anyone else besides me think the SCOTUS would wipe that particular provision off the books the moment that Harvard, Yale, et. al go to war with the RIAA? Hint: those two schools alone have more legal ability backing them and all the financial resources required to go to legally go to war, and in fact, more than all the RIAA companies combined. Not to mention that the RIAA really really really doesn't want to piss of Stanford, because the majority of the RIAA companies are in California, and it's not that far a drive from Stanford to any State court where they would choose to go to war themselves.

My question is, why aren't our congressmen and women smart enough to vote that particular piece of junk OUT of the bill?

Re:Students will pirate music, yet buy $60 games

[Sciros]

It also comes down to value for the dollar. A student can get much more entertainment value out of a $60 game than out of 4 music CDs.

The fact of the matter is, music has COMPETITION. The days of the $12 CD making sense are long, long gone. People aren't sitting around hoarding their money. No, they spend it on *other entertainment products* such as DVDs and video games. Look at how CD sales have dropped and how DVD/VG sales have risen over the past few years. To call it hypocrisy is BEYOND STUPID. You would have to stone cold batcrap bonkers to not realize it's a matter of the music industry being unable to compete for the entertainment dollars of its demographic.

And yes, buying music like that would indeed make someone poor, or at least *feel* poor, because it is a POOR FINANCIAL CHOICE in the face of what the competition is offering. A movie costs as much as, or less, than its soundtrack much of the time. A game can offer a dorm's entire floor hours of entertainment and the game industry THRIVES on that, whereas the music industry does what it can to make sure that if a dorm's entire floor is to enjoy hours of music, it will cost not $60 but far more, trying their best to tie it not only to an individual, but to a particular device that individual owns.

I don't even know why I'm taking the time to post this reply; if you had the intellectual capacity of a dixie cup you would have the sense to not post what you did.

What REALLY concerns me...

[Dorkmaster Flek]

...is that the schools would be required to promote "legal alternatives" for music to students, i.e. iTunes, Napster and the like. Most universities already monitor their network to curb file sharing. But the university being forced to push commercial services on students is way over the line. These are supposed to be institutions of learning, not free advertising. Now you've got student tuitions and tax dollars being spent on the recording industries PR campaigns. The whole thing makes me sick.

Re:Here is some Clarification

[ameline]

"develop a plan to explore"

If I tell someone I'm "developing a plan to explore" implementing X, what I mean is that I will probably never get around to *actually* implementing X -- X is likely to be implemented roughly at the same time hell freezes over -- I just want you to go away and leave me alone, as I have more important things to do *right now*. (like reading /., for example :-)

Re:Students will pirate music, yet buy $60 games

[Creepy Crawler]

I'm 26 years old, still at the Uni.

I just paid 35$ and 40$ for 2 cd's. Before I hear how stupid I am, listen.

They usually go for 3000 yen.. in Japan. They were on sale for 2700 yen, and shipping ate up the rest. Now, who are these people who I'm willing to spend ~=80$ for? Ali Project. They did the opening for Hack//Sign roots, Noir, and many other anime. They are also incredible (to my standards).

I found the first songs (from aristocracy and noblerot) on WinMX years ago.. and recently found the Ali Project Incomplete torrent pack. After downloading that, I wanted the other new songs that the pack didn't have. Youtube had them in vid format, but I wanted the pretty artwork also, so I ponied up the money. I dont feel ripped off in the least, and I'm happy with the quality.

Because I heard them on a fansubbed anime, I found the torrents. Because of the torrents, I bought, from Japan no less, 2 CD's. That's money they made cause I was exposed to their music (and I didn't have a credit card since I was 25.. dont need the debt cause school has enough).

The higher the quality of what I like, the more chance to get my money. Better work for it ;) Bonuses that arent easily reproducible are also good ways to do so. NWN did something like this by including that cloth map in the game.

Illegal? Where's the law.

[nsanders]

That provision would require universities to filter P2P and to offer legal alternatives.

I was unaware that P2P is illegal. What law am I violating when I download Linux ISO via bittorrent? Or use World of Warcraft's built-in torrent system to download updates to my game?

Federal funding = federal chains

[Sloppy]

Remember this, the next time you advocate government "helping" things by funding them. If a special interest has an axe to grind, a congressman or senator who is not accountable to you (best case: accountable to citizes in another state, worst case: accountable to the industries who fund him) will impose weird conditions for the money, and it will effect your life. You can violate the conditions and opt-out of the money, but the people of your state don't have the option of opting out of the federal taxes whence the funding came. Still want public education? You can still have it: you just have to pay for it twice.

Biotech? Sorry, only if nobody at the institution uses embryonic stem cells. Astronomy? Only if you don't publish anything that mentions Earth's weather. Education? Don't get me started. Oh, I guess this story is one of the numerous examples.

You'll know a true "science president" or "education president" when you see him. He'll be the one running on the platform of slashing all the funding, and vetoing the seemingly-pro-education bills. He'll say, "I will protect your education budget from those who aren't accountable to you." Let the state taxpayers keep that money in their state, and decide for themselves how they'll use it. That way, if industry buys some people in the next state over, at least you will still have a chance to get what you want.

Move the power to as close to home as possible, and it gets that much harder to pull bullshit like this.

How this bill could be unconstitutional . . .

[JSBiff]

If a University or College did block all P2P traffic (as opposed to blocking just traffic that they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt was infringing a specific copyright holder's copyrights), I think it would be easy to make an argument that such action is unconstitutional.

Copyright, by it's very nature, only protects that which is an embodiment of a creative idea. . .in other words, speech. OpenOffice.org is speach, for example, and is legally distributed via P2P networks. Same for many Linux distros and other Free/Open Source software. If my P2P connection to download Open Source software was blocked, that would amount to illegal censorship. Theoretically, someone could also use P2P technology to distribute Audio or Video blogs or other 'journalism', so that could then be a violation of freedom of the press.

Re:What's needed for this madness to stop

[Anonymous Coward]

No. These companies serve no purpose and deserve no profits. The record industry is a dinosaur that needs to go away. Computers and the Internet allow artists to record and distribute music all by themselves. If they need to be promoted, they can hire a promoter. I have no sympathy for RIAA companies, which serve only to exploit performers and musicians.

I have no desire to see P2P become a profit generating technology. That would just prolong the death of companies that have no right, in a fair economic system, to exist.

Re:Here is some Clarification

[jamstar7]

I remember that.

Didn't matter that the voting age was 18, or that you could be sent to a combat zone by the military at age 19. Statistically, the car insurance companies were having to pay off a disportionate amount of damage claims by 18-20 year old drunk customers, but if drinking was legally raised to 21, they would be able to skate on paying claims. "Hey, we're not liable if they broke the law!!" Kinda reminds me of why they wanted seat belts legislated into effect. Seat belts save lives, see, and a live person can be sued SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much easier than a dead person's estate...

Re:Not really a win.

[PopeRatzo]

Let's take that part of this stupid law and make something cool that will continue to bleed the RIAA out of existence.

So, we should just accept the fact that Congress is passing a bill for funding higher education that includes big financial bonuses for the entertainment industry? Lord knows, the record labels have done so much to help the intellectual enrichment of our nation's young people, right?

Welfare for the rich, once again.

With our government increasingly owned and operated by big business, it's no wonder that the one CEO that was running for president has been run out the race by a disgusted electorate. It seems like although many citizens could never elaborate fully on their instinctive negative reaction to Mr. Governor CEO, they know in their bones that there's a very very good reason NOT to have someone with experience in the corporate executive suite in the White House. Remember, these are the kind of people who get captive Boards of Directors to vote them 9-figure bonuses when the Company does poorly, while expecting "givebacks" from their workers and closing plants. That's the last kind of person we need running government at the moment.

Forget separation of Church and State. It's time for separation of Industry and State. Increasingly, "Big Government" seems preferable to me to the "lean, mean, cut jobs, cut costs" approach that's brought on the "get mine and get out" attitudes of the leaders of commerce. It wasn't always this way. Yes, there were plenty of fat-cat Industrialists in the first part of the 20th century, but there was also a few truly patriotic business leaders who believed that you couldn't sell your product if your customers weren't working and making money to spend. This was replaced by the "if we can't sell cigarettes here, we'll sell them to the stupid third-worlders" mentality (notice the drastically increasing levels of tar and nicotine in the cigarettes sold in Africa and Asia).

If we ever slide into full-scale class warfare in this country, there's not going to be a lot of pity for CEOs or their hired lobbyists or their fully-pwned elected officials.

A bill in Congress for funding higher education that gives subsidies to the Entertainment Industry. Fucking Hell.

Re:Here is some Clarification

[Killjoy_NL]

Bhuddism also doesn't count because it's not a religion :)

Re:Here is some Clarification

[Trahloc]

Wow you just gave me a strange insight into conspiracy theories ... I've never had one so strong before. You throw in, as a negative, the fact that the automotive insurance people found a way to save lives *and* increase profits by making seat belts mandatory they did a Bad Thing. Forget the fact that it was pushed through by Nader or that it was in cars made by Tucker decades before... Trahloc

Need to start somewhere

[nurb432]

The goal is to get p2p criminalized outright, and they gotta start somewhere. Start with easy extortion and get the next generation used to it, then slowly raise the bar.