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E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2010 > August > 30 > Entry
Should universities be responsible for stopping piracy?
DAYTON — Faced with the threat of losing federal funding, colleges and universities across the nation are making efforts to curb piracy of music and movies by their students.
Under the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, if schools do not implement plans to “effectively combat” the piracy of copyrighted materials, they face losing eligibility for billions in federal student aid and research dollars.
“They put teeth behind the need to address file-sharing on college campuses,” said Thomas D. Skill, associate provost and chief information officer for the University of Dayton. “The safest harbor is to block traffic. We have tried every other avenue out there.”
While UD is blocking the use of the programs most commonly used for piracy — peer-to-peer sharing programs like Kazaa and BitTorrent — other schools are taking a less heavy-handed
approach.
For more than five years, Wright State University has used a combination of software and education to curb piracy. “I can’t remember the last time we had a repeat offender,” said Mike Natale, WSU manager for Internet security.
Advocacy groups say piracy has cost the music and film industry billions each year. “It is the first time ever in the history of dealing with the issue that Congress is holding schools accountable and requiring them to address the problem,” Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, wrote on the group’s website when the new rule took effect July 1.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Colleges and Universities
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By Max
August 30, 2010 2:50 PM | Link to this
Legally, no. This will end up in court if the government witholds funding to colleges and universities who provide ISP’s for academic purposes and do not meet the ambiguous ‘anti-piracy’ efforts requirements. This is a political issue being fed by ‘advocates’ of a distressed entertainment industry. It is the job of law enforcement, not the colleges, to enforce laws. Colleges do have specific and implied rules of conduct for students which have a blanket provision for illegal conduct outside the jurisdiction of the provost. This is a law case ready to happen if the federal government has the cahunas to press and lose the case in district and Supreme Court. What happens when federal funding for DOD and research projects are ‘awarded’ to colleges? THIS!