Troubling 'Digital Theft Prevention' Requirements Remain in Higher Education Bill

Troubling ‘Digital Theft Prevention’ Requirements Remain in Higher Education Bill

Written By Jared Moya

January 22, 2008 | 5 Comments

House may vote on the bill as early as February.

Last November it was reported how the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 is a proposed anti-piracy requirement for universities that ties their funding to the purchase of DRM-based, industry-sanctioned download services, and the deployment of network snoopware that spies on and disconnects students if found to be violating any copyright laws.

After much public pressure by privacy advocates and student rights groups it seemed that the proposal would be permanently shelved. Well unfortunately it appears that its prospects for passage are now brighter with reports that H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, still contains the same anti-piracy provisions as previously feared.

For the most part, the massive, nearly 800-page bill refreshes existing legislation about federal financial aid. But the bill also includes a section with a title that sounds as if it were dreamt up by an entertainment industry lobbyist: “Campus-based Digital Theft Prevention.” Specifically, the bill says:

Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable—

[...]

(2) develop a plan for 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.

To those unfamiliar with this particular sort of DC double-speak, “alternatives to illegal downloading” means industry-sanctioned download services; and existing “technology-based deterrents” means network filters and other tools.

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.

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.

Recent reports suggest that February may be the earliest that the House will address the bill. There is time yet to contact your representative in Congress to educate them about these out-of-place requirements, and to ask that they support any effort to remove the offending mandate from the bill.

Here’s also a list of the bill’s sponsors. Please contact them as well to let your voice be heard on the issue.

SPONSOR

Rep. George Miller [D-CA]

CO-SPONSORS
Rep. Jason Altmire [D-PA]
Rep. Timothy Bishop [D-NY]
Rep. Yvette Clarke [D-NY]
Rep. Steve Cohen [D-TN]
Rep. Joe Courtney [D-CT]
Rep. Joseph Crowley [D-NY]
Rep. Danny Davis [D-IL]
Rep. Susan Davis [D-CA]
Rep. Eliot Engel [D-NY]
Rep. Raul Grijalva [D-AZ]
Rep. Phil Hare [D-IL]
Rep. Rubén Hinojosa [D-TX]
Rep. Mazie Hirono [D-HI]
Rep. Michael Honda [D-CA]
Rep. Dale Kildee [D-MI]
Rep. David Loebsack [D-IA]
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy [D-NY]
Rep. Betty McCollum [D-MN]
Rep. Grace Napolitano [D-CA]
Rep. Donald Payne [D-NJ]
Rep. John Sarbanes [D-MD]
Rep. Robert Scott [D-VA]
Rep. Carol Shea-Porter [D-NH]
Rep. Brad Sherman [D-CA]
Rep. John Tierney [D-MA]
Rep. Christopher Van Hollen [D-MD]
Rep. Lynn Woolsey [D-CA]
Rep. David Wu [D-OR]
Rep. John Yarmuth [D-KY]

Jared Moya
I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus

I spent a long time writing a letter to send out to them I thought some of you might enjoy it as well: I must let tell you that me & virtually everyone I've spoke to strongly opposes the "Digital Theft Prevention" requirements within the Higher Education Bill. It's morally wrong to have such provisions in a education bill. I'm not saying I support digital theft but I do have very strong support for civil liberties on the Internet. Now I understand civil liberties get you nowhere with your special interest groups but there must be a time or something inside you that once stood up for the people instead of multinationals? Filtering the Internet is wrong on campus or off campus because from it's conception the Internet has been designed to be neutral network of information exchange. Also you should realize that it is the tech savvy generation that controls this beautiful machine not governments. If the government or educational institutions begin invading everyones privacy everything will begin to move to an encrypted design. How are you going to filter encrypted data? Inevitably any filters designed will be rendered obsolete by technical countermeasures. Of course your friends from the RIAA won't tell you this they're holding on for dear life to their crumbling business model. But so is life things come and go things change and they need to adapt to survive not destroy privacy & freedom of expression on the Internet to stop the inevitably day when music is no longer sold on plastic CDs but songs are downloaded from the convenience of home DRM-free at prices people can afford. I think the Internet has clearly shown the people demand it and if it's not given to them they'll find a way. Studies show that consumers are more then willing to pay for convenience and right now the alternatives provided by the music industry are over priced and DRM infected. If you think my idea is crazy take a look at allofmp3.com. They sold music DRM free at an affordable price and were one of the worlds most popular web sites within months. They competed against free music and won due the convenience. The problem with allofmp3 is it was a Russian based company that wasn't paying right holders properly but if the music industry did the same thing properly it would be huge. How can one morally include provisions that take away EDUCATION FUNDING in the interest of MONEY (copyrights)? How can one morally include provisions that force educational institutions to solicit a corporations "approved" downloading services to students? I read the response from the MPAA lawyer in Washington who justified it by saying "When the government is subsidizing universities...and it discovers that those universities are spending a lot of taxpayers' money to build digital networks that are being used primarily to allow college students to traffic in infringing content I think it's perfectly legitimate for Congress to say wait a minute if we're giving you money we don't want it to be used to help college kids infringe copyright" I've been running Internet networks for over a decade and this is one of the most preposterous things I've ever heard. They really count on you guys knowing absolutely nothing about how things like this actually cost! I could walk into a entire dorm that is completely disconnected from the Internet and have Internet to everyone in the building for less then $100. Now I understand computers etc cost money but the MPAA is claiming the network capacity to transfer the data is "a lot of taxpayers money" which is simply not true todays technology have rendered the costs minute. It's especially not a lot of money when we're talking about millions of dollars in education money they're basically arguing to take away 100% of the education money because 1% is being used for the network infrastructure that can facilitate downloading copyrighted material. Filters are also unreliable because they filter information that they should not. Have they explained to you exactly how they know the difference between a copyrighted movie and a home video a student is sending home to Mom? Believe me if these groups (RIAA MPA IFPI) had it there way they wouldn't even try and figure out the difference they would just remove our civil liberty of sharing information across the Internet. You don't believe me? This is exactly what they finished lobbying to do in the European parliament they had amendments added to simply block P2P sharing at an ISP level. The Committee on Culture and Education rejected all these amendments in the end however but they did come close. But my point is you will never please these people if you give in to their control they'll only want more.

Troubling ‘Digital Theft Prevention’ Requirements Remain in Higher Education Bill

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