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.
I have an idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone (I don't have the needed skills) should make a website that correlates information on campaign donations from opensecrets with voting records of public officials. This was obviously bought by IP-industry lobbyists, and I think that if the general public could see this corruption more easily it would be a lot easier to root out.
Re:Hostile partnerships? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry to reply to myself, but I wanted to add one other point:
"offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property
Specifically relating to movies, what alternatives is a college to offer for zero-day releases, screeners, and so forth? I'd love to know what the MPAA has up its sleeve there..
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)