Use Napster or lose federal $: universities threat
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Years ago the the Big 5 record labels, now the Big 4, shoe-horned Napster Mk II (the deeply troubled, castrated corporate version, not the original) into universities across America.
The idea was: to avoid being sued by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, students would use Napster to download corporate product.
It didn’t work then, and it’s still not working and Napster, meanwhile, continues to haemorrhage investors’ money.
But that doesn’t mean to say the Big 4 have given up on it, or other corporate crap carriers.
“The new Higher Education Bill (HEA ยง494) requires that the Universities stop all P2P downloads that RIAA doesn’t like AND buy Napster or Rhapsody subscriptions for every student on the campus or lose all federal financial aid,” posts Sunny Kalara on BizOrigin, going on:
I am an IP attorney; I understand copyright laws way too well. I know what RIAA is trying to do here; these tactics are underhanded and really infuriate me.
RIAA has been phenomenally successfully in using the copyright laws to prosecute selected students at various Universities – sort of like a sniper attack on a select few. Now they want to go nuclear – they want to cut off federal financial aid to the University, if the University doesn’t effectively police the P2P downloads.
The massive Higher Education bill is about 750 pages, says Kalara, with Section 494, CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION, in its simplified version, stating, essentially, that universities will be forced to become copyright cops.
What else is new? And anyway, why not?
US congressmen `Hollywood` Howard Berman and Lamar Smith recently gave American universities a deadline to endorse a survey which amounts to a pledge of allegiance to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 music cartel, p2pnet posted, going on:
“Now, ‘congress’ has, ‘threatened 20 universities with unspecified repercussions if they fail to provide ‘acceptable answers’ about what they`re doing to stop or inhibit students from illegal downloading and file sharing’ …”
As far as we know, Berman and his sponsors are still waiting, and the RIAA (with the smarter MPAA watching cannily to see how it plays out) is maintaining its attacks on senior American schools without a word of protest from the majority of schools, or from parents.
Meanwhile, “Additionally, the Universities will have no choice but to provide some sort of subscription service for music and videos to ALL students,” says Kalara in BixOrigin.
“What are the options that are out there? Campus wide Napster or Rhapsody subscription? Either that, or risk risk loosing the financial aid.”
However, what really bothers him is: why are the private-party copyright holders (essentially the RIAA and MPAA), “being given these extraordinary powers?”
He goes on:
Next, MPAA would go to the federal government and say ‘there are a lot of bootleg copies of movies being sold in downtown LA. In the Highway funding bill, please add an amendment – City of Los Angeles has to provide an alternative to these cheap DVDs, and No more highway funding for LA until they fix the DVD bootlegging problem.’ That’s exactly what RIAA and MPAA are doing to the Universities.
This is like Visa going to the University and saying that ‘a lot of students are not paying their bills on time. Mr. Dean of the University, you have to make sure that nobody is late in their payment, and if they can’t pay on time, you should make the minimum payment on their behalf. And if you don’t, we will take away all financial aid for the University!’ How absurd is that!
The Association of American Universities (AAU), “has let its displeasure be known,” says the BizOrigin post, adding:
Last week, in a letter to Rep. Miller, AAU urged the legislators to remove the P2P provision (Sec. 494) in the Higher Education bill.
The proposal would mandate a completely inappropriate role for the Secretary of Education to single out individual institutions based on information under the control of the entertainment industry, force institutions to seek an unachievable goal of preventing illegal P2P file sharing, and risk the loss of student aid for countless students innocent of any illegal file sharing activity.
I have no issues with RIAA and MPAA aggressively enforcing their rights, but don’t jeopardize financial aid to the University or to a student who has personally done nothing wrong, just because it is convenient for RIAA and MPAA to do so.
The bill is being cosponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) email George.Miller@mail.house.gov, and Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) (he prefers not to provide his email address, if you want to fill out the form to send online message click here; select Compose own letter at the bottom). His phone number is (202) 225-2531.
(Thanks, Wenda)
Also See:
shoe-horned Napster – ‘The courtship is complete’, April 23, 2004
haemorrhage investors’ money – Napster loss narrows in Q2 on higher revenue; sees subscriber rolls decline, November 1, 2007
BizOrigin – Now RIAA wants Universities to get campus wide Napster subscription or ‘lose all federal financial aid’, November 12, 2007
p2pnet – Congress in RIAA school attacks, May 3, 2007
maintaining its attacks – Cornell and Ohio: in thrall to the RIAA, November 8, 2007
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November 13th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Enought is enought! The constitution give the right to the citizen to just dismiss an abusive governement and reorganize election. Hey it is in the constitution!
Let’s work for it! Incombants need not to apply!
The MPAA/RIAA parasites will have to start their corruption work from scratch unless we send them to Gatanamo all of them!
At least gatanamo will contain real terrorists thie time not just poor afghan farmers.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
These shenanigans get more ridiculous every day. What’s next; is everyone going to be required by law to spend a certain amount of money on music per year?
Fuckin’ ridiculous.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Yet the U.S. government has gone to great lengths to prevent IP property theft by the Chinese and Indians.
If you want corporate crap, you should pay for it, especially those rich and privileged enought to go to college.
If you don’t want to pay for music, listen to musicians who place their MP3 files on the web for free.