Download A Song -- Lose Your (Student) Loan

[marmar]

from Wiretap, via AlterNet:



Download A Song -- Lose Your Loan

By Larisa Mann, WireTap. Posted December 8, 2007.

A bill in the works could cut off federal funding for financial aid if universities don't stop their students from filesharing.



Glory be, the big copyright owners have found yet another way to threaten students' access to education -- this time by going for the biggest support of higher education -- federal funding.

On Nov 22 the House Education and Labor Committee approved H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (COAA). The name sounds like something everyone can support -- but the devil is truly in the details.

Page 411 of this 747-page bill is "Section 494(A): CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION" wherein the bill's meaning takes a serious detour from its title. To prevent college students from illegally accessing copyrighted material, the section says all schools shall (when you see the word "shall" in a law, it's a requirement, not a suggestion):

1) Have "a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property" and

2) Have "a plan to explore technology based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity." .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/70021/

[Le Taz Hot]

1. Alright, who authored this one.

OK, we know who authored it, but whose name is on it? And it came out of a DEMOCRATICALLY-CONTROLLED Committee. Aren't we so GLAD we elected DEMOCRATS? :sarcasm:

[Horse with no Name]

2. Amazing how our Congress can fit in the perks for the corporations

yet find such little time to fit in protection for the citizens.

[ecstatic]

3. the problem is, the governing bodies making these laws don't have much experience

in using the latest technology and so the RIAA is able to easily pull the wool over their eyes. This problem should go away if and when people of the downloading era begin running for office (hopefully soon).

[Le Taz Hot]

4. "If and when the people of the

downloading era begin running for office." Ah, another shot at the Boomers. Again. Such a popular meme from the "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately" generation.

Sunshine, let me give you a clue. First of all, if you think the Gen Xer or Gen Yer politicians are going to be squeaky clean, think again. Secondly, the Boomers are a LONG way from going anywhere so take a seat and wait your turn. Lastly, the problem is not generational, Einstein, it's LARGE CORPORATIONS WRITING THE LAWS AND LACKY POLITICIANS CARRYING THEIR WATER FOR THEM. Got it? Now, go read a book.

[1932]

5. Wall Street looking after Wall Street.

[DemGa]

6. They would lose Pell too--all federal funding

Sounds like industry-lobbyists writing laws.

[marmar]

7. "Sounds like industry-lobbyists writing laws."

Yup. Even law-making has been privatized.

[flashl]

8. If, at first you do not succeed, try, try, again ....

Uncertain Landscape Ahead for Copyright Protection

Specter to Lead Key Panel as Industry Ally Hatch Steps Down
December 16, 2004

In the final few weeks before the 2004 election, lobbyists for high-tech, entertainment and civil liberties interests were crammed into an icy room in the Dirksen Senate office building, trying to hammer out a bill that would have put Internet song-swapping networks like Kazaa and eDonkey out of business.

It was a controversial measure on a difficult topic, and could have easily been lost in the end-of-year shuffle. But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) was the lead sponsor of the measure and had ordered the warring factions to keep talking until they came up with language everybody liked.

...

In the late 1990s, Hatch led the effort to pass the landmark Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the Senate. That law, signed by President Clinton in 1998, stiffened protections for legitimate copies of music, movies and software, making it a crime to circumvent the electronic safeguards that copyright owners use to prevent illegal duplication.

---

Sen. Hatch's leadership on this issue was scary. At one time, there was language in legislation that would permit automated "removal" of copyright MATERIALS on a user's PC.