Illinois State University launches new website promoting legal alternatives to illegal file-sharing after it restricts their use on campus networks thanks to recent passage of the Higher Education Authorization Act.
The revamped Higher Education Act (HEA) was signed into law by President Bush a few weeks ago on August 14th and already we are starting to see some of the effects the legislation will have on colleges and universities throughout the country.
Illinois State University, no doubt in time for the new Fall semester, has decided to begin prohibiting the use of P2P and file-sharing applications and services on the campus network.
Erik Christiansen, a junior business teacher education major at ISU, noted that he “…wouldn’t do it [share files illegally] if the charges were more reasonable.” He lamented that prices for content on legal services are tough to afford on a student’s budget.
To assist students trying to find legal alternatives to file-sharing, ISU has decided to launch a site called BirdTrax which provides a comprehensive list of places they can go.
“There are so many groups that this affects,” said David Greenfield, director of Student Technology Support at ISU. “We want students to give us feedback. We want people to tell us what their favorite site is so that we can continue in our evaluation.”
After a quick evaluation, I can tell you that the suggested alternatives are every bit as bad one would think they are.
Here are a few of the standouts:
MUSIC – Wal-Mart, Zune, Ruckus, Rhapsody
MOVIES -Blockbuster, Netflix, Wal-Mart
TV SHOWS – Joost, Wal-Mart
Now if your recall, the MPAA once blamed college students for 44% of domestic piracy losses. It later revised the figure to a mere15% which, if you subtract students who live off campus and thus won’t be affected by the legislation, means that they’re responsible for 10% of the problem at most. This makes the overall costs to educational institutions to monitor and enforce the anti-P2P provisions of the HEA a terrible waste of resources, especially when all they do is hinder the ability of students – the future doctors, engineers, and scientists of this country – to be able to share ideas and communicate and ultimately have no effect on the remaining 90% of movie piracy alone!
Worse yet, restricting P2P applications still does nothing to address the plethora of alternatives that abound. From sites like Rapidshare to Divshare, from MegaUplaod to even simple e-mail attachments, students will still be able to illegally share copyrighted material. Only now colleges and universities like ISU to get to diverge precious resources from academics to intellectual property enforcement of third parties.
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Right…So when the hell is someone going to assassinate that low-life puss nut maggot fuck! we all know as bush/twat?…. Dose anybody care about their own country over there in America or what? I thought freedom of speech was part of the constitution ‘n’ shit and people are still letting this stupid ass whole war criminal sign imposing legislations on people that nobody without bias asked for… I’m felling a little bit two minded about posting this as he could be watching = S
assassinate – bush …. lol it’s probably going to set off a lot of alarm bells at CIA CTU and the pentagon = P
I’m joking but you can never say anything for sure online these days…
@TheRealMcCoy
Are you high?
rofl TheRealMcCoy
@soulxtc
uhh… Yea man how did you know? =D lol…fuck! even when on here I still look stoned! = P this is some good weed man wish you where here to try some…
nah man I honestly think these control freaks need to get high and just chill the fuck out! I really hate bureaucrats there total control freaks total dick heads and they can only see things in one dimension… and what the fuck gives bush the right was sign the (HEA) into law or anything to do with education….he’s a fucking retard man! he can’t even speak a word of sense without having a script set in front of him to read from and he’s had more public gaffs than any president like ever!
so when a guy who can’t even pronounce his words properly ignores intelligence from people hired to watch out for the security of the county … and doesn’t ever bother to read his reports that makes all the difference between peace and going to war that killed a million innocent people and his own troops + some brits because he was too lazy to read a document that says…” Iraq is not an imminent threat to the US because they don’t even have the attack capability and they where NOT the ones responsible for for 9/11 the taliban was” but yet he gets to sign the Higher Education Act in law? do you see my principle thought here? how can and ill educated man sign a legislation about education? am i making any sense here or am i just speaking high again? = (
he’s also probably wouldn’t care if p2p has legitimate education purposes he would just ban it because people said it was responsible for 44% of the recording companies losses…not even to bother looking into see if it was true… = )
@The Real McCoy
My lil bro is rockin some SD dank right now I dont smoke but always ENCOURAGE people to….the whole world definitely needs to “chill the fuck out.”
Part of the real problem these days is people worrying about what others are doing. If it doesnt affect you or if what their doing is in the spirit of the free exchange of ideas and thought among men – private individuals – then leave it be. Why do we always insist on having something to be at war with or worry about?
Preach it TheReaMcCoy……llololo
This is where file sharing will get you in the real world
at least you will have somewhat of a warning
http://www.antiquiet.com/
Speaking of a dying internet anyone tried wireless mesh technologies? I’ve played around a bit here with a local group totally free uncensored and uncontrolled networks. Like the great internet of old. I seriously think this will be the future. The RIAA and their ilk can have the internet soon there will be no-one using it anymore. We’ve had web servers filesharing and ftp running on a totally open wireless system over a good 4 mile radius all that’s needed are extra mesh nodes and you can virtually extend it for ??? I’m seriously going to start my own little internet here. Anyone who’s been on the internet since about 1994 would know what it was like then. Time to give the internet back to the people.
@soulxtc + Spurge
I feel what your saying soulxtc that’s just how I think like…
Spurge… thats like totally old school man! = D …I don’t know that much about it apart from what you’ve just said there but i’ve heard about it before a long time ago… Just get you’re mobile phone or a radio and a piece of data cable and start connecting though radio waves and thats you sorted right? lol well radio has turned into digital now so if you use that it should be way more reliable and stable than it ever could have been before…If there is a way to have free unrestricted internet access without needing to go through ISP’s then i’m all in man!….problem is radio channels don’t go over states or even over countries without services needing to rely them… wouldn’t it only cover small rural areas? I can’t really see how you could share very much in one place at a time = S
wireless radio networking please explain! = 0
@Spurge
Once again you’re examples are totatally unrealistic…..
The guy posted them ONLINE for all the world to see and download…..the guy’s an idiot for doing so even though Ive heard the album already and think its absolutely horrible.
BTW wrong links> http://www.antiquiet.com/editorials/2008/08/abbie-hoffman-where-are-you/
Due to> http://www.antiquiet.com/features/2008/06/weve-got-chinese-democracy-and-its-worth-the-wait/
@Spurge
Yes! It’s interesting because it proves once again what we and I have said to gentleman like Sarge all along and that is that you CANT BEAT TECHNOLOGY.
I think the next craze will be TB NAS servers that groups of friends share access to….
I am afraid to ask
TB NAS servers
how much more damage can that do ?