Anti-P2P College Bill Moving Through House

An anonymous reader writes "A news.com article is covering an amendment to the College Opportunity and Affordability Act (pdf) that should make folks in Hollywood, the RIAA, and the MPAA well pleased. The tiny section seeks to hinge government approval of an institution of higher learning on whether or not they adequately dissuade Peer-to-Peer filesharing of copyrighted materials. The Act came out of the House Education and Labor Committee, which agreed on the terms unanimously. There is still some question, though, as to what penalties should be handed down for institutions that don't do enough to protect intellectual property. 'Some university representatives and fair-use advocates worry that schools run the risk of losing aid for their students if they fail to come up with the required plans. "The language in the bill appears to be clear that failure to carry out the mandates would make an institution ineligible for participation in at least some part of Title IV (which deals with federal financial aid programs)," Steven Worona, director of policy and networking programs for the group Educause, said in a telephone interview Thursday.'" Update: 11/16 16:36 GMT by Z : PDF link corrected.

non-broken link to the text

[theMerovingian]

here [house.gov]

Also note the status of the bill, it has just been introduced. [govtrack.us]

Send a message to the constituents of the proposer

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Here are the emails for the county officials and city council for the largest cities in George Miller's district. Make sure to send Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) so they might actually read it.

Subject: George Miller hides language in H.R.4137 that would remove federal funding from colleges unable to stop file-sharing

BCC: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]



Dear Sir or Madam,

News source: http://www.news.com/2102-1028_3-6217943.html?tag=st.util.print [news.com]

Bill source: http://edlabor.house.gov/bills/HEAReauthorizationText.pdf [house.gov]

This is unbelievably unconscionable and corrupt on the part of your elected representative. The MPAA is applauding Rep. George Miller for introducing an anti-piracy bill that threatens the nation's colleges with the loss of $100 Billion a year in federal financial aid, should they fail to have a technology plan to stop illegal file sharing.

The proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page bill, has alarmed university officials. "Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid -- including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy," said university officials in a letter to Congress. "Lower-income students, those most in need of federal financial aid, would be harmed most under the entertainment industry's proposal."

Subject correction

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Subject: George Miller hides language in College Opportunity and Affordability Act that removes federal funding from colleges unable to stop file-sharing

Re:Hey, Americans

[faloi]

How can anyone with two brain cels to rub together cast a vote for either Democrats or Republicans?

Perhaps you haven't been following voter turn-out trends. Most people aren't voting for Democrats or Republicans. They're staying home. Congress's approval ratings are in the toilet. Citizens aren't happy with their elected officials. People are screaming at their representatives when they do something stupid. But we haven't gotten to the point where we psychically stop bills before they start. Only when it's presented can we voice our continuing displeasure, and wait for a new election cycle.

Re:Everything is copyrighted

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked the bill itself (http://edlabor.house.gov/bills/HEAReauthorizationText.pdf [house.gov]) and it is very careful to always state "unauthorized distribution", meaning that authorized distribution is still fine. Granted, the bill is dangerous for many other reasons, but it would not penalize anybody for legal distribution.

Re:MPAA & RIAA for Congress

[feed_me_cereal]

much more effective: make a phone call.

If you talk to lobbyists, they'll tell you that often a representative will vote according to how many calls from constituents he got on either side, and often only as many as a hundred or so people will call! This is where you can actually make a difference! When you call you'll be greeted by a staffer, so make sure you know the title of the bill AND the code. Citing both will more likely result in your opinion being recorded by the staffer.

I'm not sure what's going on with the bill right now, but it's also important to know when/who to call:
    1) call those in a committee dealing with the bill if they're currently making changes to it
    2) call everyone the day before a vote to let your representative know how you would like them to vote on it

The humane society often puts all this information together for people who are concerned about animal cruelty issues. Is there a similar group that does the work for us on this front?

Re:Outdated business model cramping your style?

[MBGMorden]

Must be the location or the length of time you've been absent. The movie next to the tabloids and the candy are the $1 DVD's. Those are mostly old black and white movies, B-movies, cheap cartoons, and other such stuff that no one has heard of. Indeed, I never see people buying those. The $5 movies are in the electronics department, and are well known (if not great) movies. Dracula, Talledga Nights, Enemy at the Gates, The Truman Show, The Cable Guy, Saw III, Not Another Teen Movie, Down With Love, Failure to Launch, etc (that's just a handful that I remember seeing in that category last time I was there). Again, not GREAT movies (well, Dracula is pretty good), but still newer movies that people have indeed heard of, and people seem to buy quite a bit of them.

Re:Outdated business model cramping your style?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, most of those $5 movies are priced that way so that the store can advertise them and use this tactic to draw people into the store where they will then purchase more profitable items at the same time.

Seriously, do you even know what a loss leader is?

If p2p users were a little less careless...

[Phil_at_EvilNET]

P2P has become like anyting else lately. It's targeted because people like it, use it in excess, and think there's no repercussions for using it illegally. Kind of like underage drinking, smoking, and illicit drug use, or illegaly owning a firearm. If you don't want to get caught drinking, you drink in the company of people you trust. If you don't want your parents knowing you smoke or use drugs, you take measures to make sure they don't find your stash or catch you using it. If you don't have a permit to carry a gun, you don't wear it on your hip. In the same respect, if you're filesharing, you should take measures to make sure you can trust who you're sharing with, make sure that you conceal it using a secure VPN or tunnelized network, and you keep it encrypted or hidden so that if someone sees it they don't know what is or how to look at it. SECURITY is your best defense at sharing data, any kind of data, be it legal or not. If you want to protect your ass, you need to protect your assets. The only way to do that is to make sure you either secure your little P2P stealth-net or simply don't do it at all. Since most of us would elect the former than the latter, that means using the skills you have and the knowledge you can share and creating a secure, tunnelized P2P network that uses encryption. Be smart people.

E-mail to my representative

[Saxophonist]

Representative Ellison:

I urge you to oppose a provision contained in H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, specifically in Section 494, entitled "Campus-Based Digital Theft Prevention." This provision unfairly and needlessly places a burden on colleges and universities to subscribe to services that may have little or no educational value and/or to purchase, possibly with federal funds, software or equipment to impede file sharing on their computer networks.

It is not the job of colleges and universities to police student activities at the behest of private businesses, notably those represented by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. The money spent by colleges and universities in compliance will inevitably be passed on to students through fees and costs, negating the very idea of "College Opportunity and Affordability" that the bill's title purports to create. Federal funds used to further this end could be better spent on actual student aid if it is truly the goal of Congress to help students financially through this bill.

Further, it is not technically feasible for filtering software to distinguish between legal peer-to-peer traffic and other peer-to-peer traffic on a network. Such software will either stifle all peer-to-peer traffic, including legal, protected speech necessary to academic freedom, or it will take an ineffective approach that may prevent some illegal file sharing traffic, but may also permit some such traffic as well as block legal file sharing traffic. Copyright holders can and often do permit distribution of their works through peer-to-peer and other distribution channels. Blocking any such distribution channel is tantamount to blocking academic freedom and free speech itself.

I urge you to get Section 494 stricken from H.R. 4137. Failing that, I urge you to vote against this bill. I eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely,
Saxophonist

(Well, I used my real name.)

Feel free to use any or all of this in your e-mail or letter. Of course, use your own representative's name. If you feel it would be more effective, call in addition. Let your opinion be heard.

Re:Outdated business model cramping your style?

[Nursie]

1. It's not stealing, really.

2. You also make the false assumption that if they couldn't get it free then you would have more paying customers. Not true. Not true in the least. Pirates buy MORE media than non pirates.