http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070503-congress-to-universities-curb-piracy-or-we-will-be-forced-to-act.html

Quote :

"Congress has begun putting pressure on colleges and universities in the US over piracy concerns. Lawmakers sent "surveys" to the presidents of 19 universities in hopes of getting answers as to what the universities are doing to curb piracy on campus. But the surveys weren't just to find out what's being done, as House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) made a veiled threat to universities that do not provide satisfactory answers back to Congress. "If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act," Smith said in a statement. "The fact that copyright piracy is not unique to college and university campuses is not an excuse for higher education officials to fail to take responsible steps to eliminate such activity nor to appropriately sanction such conduct when discovered," the letter reads. The universities that received the letter and survey were: * Boston University * Columbia University * Duke University * Howard University * Michigan State University * North Carolina State University * Ohio University * Purdue University * Rochester Institute of Technology * University of California at Los Angeles * University of Massachusetts at Amherst * University of Massachusetts at Boston * University of Michigan * University of Pennsylvania * University of Nebraska at Lincoln * University of South Carolina * University of Tennessee * University of Wisconsin at Madison * Vanderbilt University According to a copy of the letter as seen by Ars Technica, the universities in question were pulled from a pair of lists released by the RIAA and MPAA this year naming the top piracy schools in the nation. The survey questions the schools on a wide range of topics, from a description of the procedure followed when receiving an infringement notice to a detailed list—starting in 2002—of the number of students that have been involved with piracy. Some questions were more leading, asking whether the institution offers discounts or site licensing for "legitimate online services," whether the universities provide subsidized cable or satellite TV programming to students, and whether the universities agree with a statement made by a Purdue spokesperson in February, saying that the RIAA was "asking us to pursue an investigation and as the service provider, we don't see that as our role." "We want to know exactly what they plan to do to stop illegal downloading on their campuses," Smith continued in a statement. "Universities have a moral and legal obligation to ensure students do not use campus computers for illegal downloading. These schools do not give away their intellectual property for free, and they should not expect musicians to do so." The Committee gives the universities until May 31 to provide detailed answers to the questions, and claims that the answers will assist Congress in determining what legislation might need to be enacted to ensure that piracy is "no longer commonly associated with student life on some US campuses." However, whether the universities will actually respond is another matter. While some universities have been quick to comply with requests from the RIAA and MPAA thus far, others have not. Answering the thorny survey questions will force some universities to go on written record about their enforcement practices, which Congress will likely use against them in the future if those answers are deemed to be unacceptable. "

good job guys! keep downloading

5/4/2007 3:05:15 PM

w00t. Saw this on /. a few minutes ago.

5/4/2007 3:09:30 PM

They should privatize internet access on college campuses if they want to get around this.

There's not really anything they can do to stop the piracy, without instituting draconian firewall policies (that block EVERYTHING except web traffic).

5/4/2007 3:10:37 PM

keep up the good work!

5/4/2007 3:35:22 PM

Oh, joy! Now Congress is involved.

This will end badly.

5/4/2007 3:41:04 PM

I started to compose a much longer response to this, but I decided against finishing it. I'll just say this: if Congress wants to play armchair quarterback and do this sort of political grandstanding, fine.

You want people like me to help? Fine. SHOW ME THE MONEY TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. I don't have the time or resources to do my job and add this shit too.

5/4/2007 4:07:52 PM

so pretty much some people from the RIAA made some campaign contributions

5/4/2007 4:41:12 PM

^^ i ♥ ITD

5/4/2007 4:43:09 PM

Political back scratching at it's finest

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/bullying/congressmen-who-took-money-from-the-riaa-send-chiding-letters-to-universities-257422.php

Quote :

"Lamar's threats were vague but are definitely not connected to the fact that in the last election cycle, he received $7,500 in campaign contributions from the RIAA Political Action Committee as well as $2,000 from the Warner Music Political Action Committee. A group called "Texans for Lamar Smith"pocketed a cool $1,000 from Andy Lack, the Chairman and CEO of Sony/BMG, as well as another $1,000 from the Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Political Action Committee."

5/4/2007 4:51:54 PM

Forgot to mention the cosponsor

Quote :

"Howard Berman (D-Calif.), a co-signer of the letter told Variety: "By answering the survey, universities will be required to examine how they address piracy on their campuses." Berman received $3,500 in contributions from the RIAA PAC. He also grabbed $2,100 from David Geffen, $2,100 from Jeffrey Katzenberg, and $2,100 from Steven Spielberg. Even though Berman is from California, he received $22,700 from 23 individuals living in New York. People like: BMI/Executive Robert L. Ahrold, BMI/Sr. Vice President Marvin L. Berenson, Homemaker Clarissa A. Bronfman (she was good for $4,200!), , Edgar M. Bronfman (another $4,200!), and Robert A. Iger, the CEO of Disney."

5/4/2007 4:53:59 PM

Quote :

"These schools do not give away their intellectual property for free, and they should not expect musicians to do so."

Uhh... yeah they do... Should check the internet and find out how much research is actually out there (except for trade journals and databases of such)... Not to mention that the library is free... that has information... Should we start restricting people going to the library?

5/4/2007 5:07:36 PM

Oh dear

5/4/2007 5:42:59 PM

^^ to be fair, isn't that all paid for by public funding like bonds and taxes (for public universities, i mean)? in those cases, i think universities are legally required to make those services free to the public

5/4/2007 6:10:33 PM

^ not every funding source is a public funding source. there are plenty of private entities that provide funding based upon their own mandates and goals. not all research gets published.

5/4/2007 6:16:22 PM

yeah, i kinda realized that after i posted...and then i figured i didn't feel like editing

but still...public universities are still required to provide a lot for free to the people who pay for them, right?

5/4/2007 6:17:21 PM

Yup.

We should tell House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith that in our great nation, we do in fact give education and information for free... Someone educate him on that, please.

5/4/2007 6:40:41 PM

education and information <> IP

if it has purposefully been placed in the public domain.

5/4/2007 7:19:18 PM

Quote :

"to be fair, isn't that all paid for by public funding like bonds and taxes (for public universities, i mean)? in those cases, i think universities are legally required to make those services free to the public"

he libraries are kept open not as much because they have to be, but because of a sort of altruistic theory about what a library is supposed to be.

5/4/2007 7:38:18 PM

didn't know that libraries can have a gender...

5/4/2007 7:41:33 PM

the survey is very interesting.... they don't know what they're getting into i don't think. it actually asks us to tell them how many works were infringed by students in the last 5 years. how many songs downloaded, how many movies shared, etc. we've received 4000 infringement notifications in the last 5 years. i don't even want to guess how many works were cited in 4000 emails....

5/4/2007 9:00:00 PM

rofl

TVX anyone?

5/4/2007 9:59:15 PM

way to costly for colleges to track/limit/block file sharing

5/5/2007 2:17:00 AM

^ it's the tracking part of that which makes it burdensome.

5/5/2007 9:19:48 AM

^blocking/limiting it is also very costly

application inspection on traffic, and some of the third party tools don't even work well, nothing covers the entire spectrum of file sharing

sure QoS/rate limiting could be implemented, but that neither guarantees a block, nor does it make exceptions for ligit services...ie downloading linux bit torrent images

all in all, its all costly, i think the RIAA/MPAA should pony up the expenses

of course, if ncsu had a zero tolerence policy, this would not be a problem. ie your expelled

5/5/2007 3:24:23 PM

Quote :

"of course, if ncsu had a zero tolerence policy, this would not be a problem. ie your expelled"

This statement assumes, of course, that all files that are shared are made available willingly by the owners of the computers involved.

There are viruses/trojans that will set your machine up to download and route illegal material that can also be tracked by the **AA groups and reported to the university.

This solution would end up causing people who are just bad with and/or don't understand computer security to be expelled. A little harsh for a first offense, don't you think?

5/5/2007 4:17:24 PM

^I agree

But I am saying, I think thats where the RIAA/MPAA are headed with this stuff...put pressure on the colleges to discipline the students.

Also, lets not forget NCSU would have its own way to look into the issues...im not saying, bittorrent traffic = expulsion.

[Edited on May 5, 2007 at 4:30 PM. Reason : .]

5/5/2007 4:29:34 PM

the RIAA knows all of this...they know it's impossible for any ISP to monitor/regulate the offending traffic (note that i say "offending," and not all torrent/p2p traffic), and they know that it's an uphill battle

this is a last-ditch effort on their part to make others do the work for them because they've come to realize they, by themselves, have absolutely NO chance to effectively battle illegal sharing on the large scale...their lawsuits are a joke and the judicial system is finally calling bullshit on their tactics and absurd methods

5/5/2007 4:57:31 PM

see, the problem here is that these things have legitimate uses.

for example, the Fedora Linux project, amongst others, PREFERS that you use BitTorrent to download the latest ISOs of their OS.

should Fedora torrenters be penalized as well?

how much time and energy should NCSU put into figuring out what each and every user is doing, and the nature and content of each and every file being shared?

do you think that we have the time and resources to bring to bear on that? seriously?

i say again, the issue is NOT the technical aspect. the issue is tracking.

5/5/2007 7:40:27 PM

I wish all of the universities on this list would just "forget" to answer the survey and/or answer "information not available" to all of the questions. It's just another bitch move by congress.

5/5/2007 8:13:22 PM

Quote :

"House Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith (R-TX) made a veiled threat to universities that do not provide satisfactory answers back to Congress. "If we do not receive acceptable answers, Congress will be forced to act," Smith said in a statement."

I would like to know who is "forcing" Congress to do something. How does Smith think anyone can "force" Congress to do something? And wouldn't it make him look bad if he's trying to force the Legislative branch to do something?

[Edited on May 6, 2007 at 12:54 AM. Reason : ]

5/6/2007 12:49:54 AM