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MPAA justifies tying college funding to stopping piracy

Posted by aubin on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 at 12:00 PM (EST)

Despite the overwhelmingly critical response to plans to tie the college aid of all students, not just those caught infringing, the MPAA continues to hold fast on the plan, arguing:

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.

The bill as it stands would punish the entire university if even one student is caught illegally downloading content. But the justification according to the movie industry trade group is that the Internet ("digital networks") are only for copyright infringement. I imagine Wikipedia, Google, Amazon, eBay and a few other sites might disagree.

You can find the entire article here.

Games and Technology (48 comments)

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Seriously.

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DDRSkata (November 21, 2007)

Fuck these guys. The MPAA will do anything to make themselves seem not only right, but straight up holy, when ultimately, all they're doing is fucking us. They could, through their shills in Congress, fuck every college student in America, and nobody would bat a fucking eye until they saw the bill.

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The4footpartysub (November 21, 2007)

seriously, fuck the mpaa! they are greedy basatrds. jack valenti is still collecting money even though he's 20 feet in the ground. i'm sure they'd love to see hundreds of college kids get screwed over so they can make a few bucks.

and on a side note, has anyone seen this film is not yet rated?

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DDRSkata (November 21, 2007)

Yeah. That movie was ridiculous. I knew these guys were bastards, but not to the degree that they really are.

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nina_d (November 21, 2007)

i'm pretty sure college networks are not used primarily to traffic in infringing content

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andywax (November 21, 2007)

I'm sure it's a very low %

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baseball (November 21, 2007)

it's probably not as low as you think

hell, torrents alone account for more than 35% of traffic on the entire internet

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Banal242 (November 21, 2007)

Really? Where did you get that stat?

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baseball (November 21, 2007)

well when i was still in college i did a report on torrents for an Information Ethics course so i remembered the number

a quick google search got this article from 2004:

According to British Web analysis firm CacheLogic, BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet -- more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined -- and dwarfs mainstream traffic like Web pages.
http://in.tech.yahoo.com/041103/137/2ho4i.html

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andywax (November 21, 2007)

wow, that's pretty eye opening

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baseball (November 21, 2007)

although we should also remember that torrent != copyright infringement

there's plenty of legal use of torrents

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badbrain (November 21, 2007)

72% of all stats are made up on the spot

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Banal242 (November 21, 2007)

23% of people know that

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WhiteCollar (November 21, 2007)

60% of the time, it works every time.

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jumptheshark (November 21, 2007)

College digital networks are used primarily for piracy? Give me a fucking break. Fuck these people.

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ihateallofyou (November 21, 2007)

sure most people probably send 20 emails for every movie they download, but the movie takes up considerably more bandwidth. sorry, but this is probably true. it doesn't change the fact that this is a terrible plan.

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Banal242 (November 21, 2007)

We need to reform fair use so these organizations can stop claiming everything is a copyright infringement.

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Piata (November 21, 2007)

More like reform fair use and change your political structure while you're at it. God I'm glad I live in Canada.

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TheYoungInfluential (November 21, 2007)

when did punknews stop being helpful?

"You can find the entire article"

it sounds so arrogant!

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Archangel (November 21, 2007)

Hahaha good call.

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nina_d (November 21, 2007)

hahahaha

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trevor_the_exploder (November 21, 2007)

i'm going to go out on a limb and say more time is spent looking at porn than downloading music.

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listofdemands (November 21, 2007)

i'm going to go ahead and agree with you.
-nic

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Cottage_Cheese (November 21, 2007)

good point. how come the pr0n companies aren't battling piracy. At least 20% of the content I downloaded illegally from my college dorm was pr0n

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baseball (November 21, 2007)

some of them are to a point, i've definitely read articles in the past

obviously mainstream music and movies are going to get a lot more attention in the media

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listofdemands (November 21, 2007)

these guys can suck my dick.
-nic

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Archangel (November 21, 2007)

Organizations like the MPAA and the RIAA are so frustrating. They're as stubborn as the church.

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Trauma16 (November 21, 2007)

So happy i'm in Canada...

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Banal242 (November 21, 2007)

Yeah, the Canadian Copyright Board is awesome.

amirite?

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fallingupwards84 (November 21, 2007)

well yeah, i mean that just makes sense

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Banal242 (November 21, 2007)

What would Ron Paul do about the RIAA?

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fallingupwards84 (November 21, 2007)

he would actually weaken the RIAA, better than what the Democrats are doing

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Banal242 (November 21, 2007)

Weaken how? He is pro business, right? Therefore, pro big business? Less government regulation would mean more leeway for the RIAA to keep up this type of stuff.

Explain to me how he would weaken it, because I am actually interested in ways to weaken the RIAA.

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abrrock (November 21, 2007)

what do you mean by a candidate having a "pro business" stance? there doesn't seem to be much meaning in that term.

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Banal242 (November 21, 2007)

As in all our problems can be solved by unregulated, cut throat capitalism

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fallingupwards84 (November 22, 2007)

eh he's not pro-business.. a pro-business candidate would support subsidies and special protectionist legislation that would give favors and breaks to corporations. Paul is against all of this, because it violates the free market.

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fallingupwards84 (November 22, 2007)

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serpent_sky (November 21, 2007)

The good thing is, as pointed out above -- companies like Amazon, eBay, Google, etc. would have deep objections to this. As would sites like MySpace. Or even LiveJournal. As such, they may band together to fight the RIAA for being ridiculous on every level.

There is no way the RIAA can be SO stupid that they really think the Internet is just being used for pirating things, or that it is even the #1 reason it is being used. Ridiculous. They undermine any sympathy anyone could, would, or did have for them with every new idea they have.

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LogicIsForLosers (November 21, 2007)

Bull shiiiiit.
Of 'course the MPAA is supporting it.
They are the people losing money. [Because they can't just line their pockets and a 'couple billion 1 dollar bills or more, no no, they want ALL the 1 dollar bills, and the 10's, 20's, and 50's, AND 100's.]

Fuck the greedy bastards.

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karmabad (November 21, 2007)

This one's almost funny! Wonder if they can sue a student on campus for looking at a CD-R or iPod that holds "ilegally downloaded content!"

the MPAA will get theirs soon enough...

http://thisblogisover.wordpress.com/

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Lmnndtlgrph (November 21, 2007)

MPAA: "What? Using the internet for academic research? At college? No, come on -that's just not plausible. Universities are only interested in building digital networks for their students to illegally download leaked Fall Out Boy and Puff Daddy songs."

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allison_le_gnome (November 21, 2007)

Obviously universities aren't building networks specifically to enable piracy, and they all have rules against using their network for illegal purposes, some with rather severe consequences. Most block torrents on their own anyway. Just based on that, there's no way you can justify punishing an entire university for the actions of one student. Taking away that individual student's financial aid would still be unfair and ridiculous, but would at least have some logical basis.

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WhiteCollar (November 21, 2007)

FUCK! did anyone actually read the article?

damn. this little post by the 'org is just as bad as every other news source twisting everyone else's words. maybe do a little real research next time...

"University representatives who oppose the provision have acknowledged, too, that they're not sure what exactly the punishment would be for failing to craft such plans, although some have read the bill to say their schools would no longer be eligible for at least some student financial aid programs."

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Seanzor (November 21, 2007)

Fuck them. Now I wanna download movies.

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holyromanstile (November 21, 2007)

This doesn't even make sense to me, at my school at least the network has some serious restrictions when it comes to illegal downloads. I'm not that great with computers but I know some people who are and still can't get any kind of download or torrent program to work.

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Autosuggestion (November 21, 2007)

C'mon Aubin, read the fucking article. I think you're great, but as White Collar pointed out a few posts above, what you've said significantly distorts the actual content. I understand if you are taking two seconds to put up a headline with a link to an article, but maybe you shouldn't contribute your own editorial opinion in the headline if you can't take the time to understand the bill or its implications. This just helps spread hysteric responses based on hearsay.

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WhiteCollar (November 21, 2007)

for anyone who wants to actually read this section of the bill themselves and form their own opinions here's the link to the pdf

http://edlabor.house.gov/bills/HEAReauthorizationText.pdf

Read section 494 "Campus-based digital theft protection" beginning on page 411.

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MsJustinChris (November 21, 2007)

So, is the MPAA trying to say that internet exists only for the purpose of copyright infringement?

If that is what they are saying, then maybe they are ill, you know, 'gone wrong in the mind-tank'.

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LushJ (November 21, 2007)

Yeah, I read the article, & Whitecollar didn't mention the following paragraph:

"University representatives who oppose the provision have acknowledged, too, that they're not sure what exactly the punishment would be for failing to craft such plans, although some have read the bill to say their schools would no longer be eligible for at least some student financial aid programs.

Attaway's defense of the bill drew a sharp rebuke, however, from Gigi Sohn, president of the digital-rights advocacy group Public Knowledge. "Why do you put things in bills that you don't want to enforce at some point?" she asked. "Even if I agree, and I don't, that it's toothless, I don't want that language in there for some other Congress to give it some teeth." "

I completely agree. Crap, even the fact that members of Congress would even CONSIDER this general idea being sli

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