Senate Passes Bill Targeting College Piracy 157
An anonymous reader brings news that the College Opportunity and Affordability Act has passed in the US Senate and now awaits only the President's signature before becoming law. Hidden away in the lengthy bill are sections which tie college funding to "offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity." The EFF issued a statement expressing concern over the bill earlier this year, shortly before the House of Representatives approved it. We discussed the introduction of the bill last November. The Senate vote was 83-8, with 9 not voting. The full text of the bill is available. The relevant section is 494, at the end of the general provisions.
Sounds like a good bill (Score:5, Funny)
College piracy really is getting out of hand these days. I just graduate college recently, and it's ridiculous how easy and casual it is.
Copyright infringement is illegal and costs companies money. As a legitimate consumer, I feel duped when others are trading around something I paid good money far.
I'm all in favor of trying to prevent and deter this unlawful activity.
Re:Sounds like a good bill (Score:4, Funny)
On a department UNIX system, just look in each users home directory for the file:
".windows_settings/My Documents/My Music"
Those Windows auto-rippers will put everything there for everyone else to download...
Love how u.s. senators name bills (Score:4, Funny)
if you look at it, all the keywords are there. wow, now see : "OPPORTUNITY" a positive word. "AFFORDABILITY" another good, positive word. "COLLEGE" wow, higher education too.
if you read it, you may be tempted to think this is something that provides opportunity, affordable college education and such. HOW can it be bad ?
they do that all the time. check this now : Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
examining it gives you all the necessary feelings : "digital" - wow it has to be something progressive. Millenium - oh boy, we are in 21st century yay. "copyright" -> it has "right" in it, so it has to be good. if you add the bait that is "it will provide/protect jobs" while advertising for it, you are sure to fool the public.
but of course, for them to be fooling american public for SO long with same ploys, and successfully too, there has to be a number of preconditions, providing for the fooling. i am not sure which hold true :
a) American people are UTTERLY stupid
b) American people "dont care" c) American people care little, but only for selfish reasons - see "it will protect jobs". and plan very short sighted.
d) American people are powerless
f) All of the above
g) Mixture from all the above in varying degrees.
Re:Love how u.s. senators name bills (Score:1, Funny)
e) American's don't know the letters of the alphabet
Re:No it isn't. (Score:2, Funny)
Downloading and P2P are not illegal, copyright infringement is.
And even then, copyright infringement is only illegal, it's not actually wrong.
Copyright is theft. If you don't want something copied, don't fucking release it in the first place.
Re:Love how u.s. senators name bills (Score:3, Funny)
They even tipped their hat to the groups who helped draft it, and made sure its name ended in *AA.