p2pnet news | RIAA | MPAA News:-- As part of the ongoing corporate movie and music cartel ‘education’ campaign, two millionaire lobbyists are ordering American colleges and universities to shape up as far as entertainment bidnes is concerned.

US educators continue to fight entertainment cartel attempts to force US colleges and universities into not only becoming corporate copyright cops, but also installing, and paying for, software designed to filter all but corporate ‘product’ from online school networks, p2pnet posted on Saturday.

Quoting a Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus story, we went on:

“In a letter to members of Congress dated Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America took exception to claims by higher-education groups that online music services and technology tools to block file-sharing are costly and ineffective.”

The letter is signed by Tweedle-Dums Mitch ‘Bainwol (RIAA, left) and the MPAA’s Dan Glickman.

Addressed to Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the committee on health, education, labor and pensions, Michael B. Enzi, the committee’s ranking member, George Miller, chairman of the committee on education and labor, and Howard P. ‘Buck’ McKeon, the committee’s senior Republican member, ironically, the letter accuses ACE of making “misleading assertions” and “mischaracterizations”.

Bainwol and Glickman are, of course, established experts at both.

“Dear Senators Kennedy and Enzi and Representatives Miller and McKeon,” the say in their letter, going on >>>

On behalf of America’s motion picture studios and record labels, we are writing to respond to the March 11, 2008 letter from the American Council on Education (ACE) and other higher education associations sent to your offices regarding the Higher Education Act Reauthorization. While we remain committed to working directly with the higher education community on the serious issue of campus-based digital piracy, we were very concerned about the misleading assertions and mischaracterizations contained in the letter about the pending legislation and would like to take this opportunity to refocus on the facts surrounding digital piracy on college campuses.

The ACE letter urges that you “reject language contained in H.R. 4137 that would require institutions to develop plans to provide alternative music and movie services and implement technological measures to deter illegal file sharing” since “recent investigations and reports to the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities concluded that legitimate online alternatives and technologies designed to deter illegal file sharing are largely ineffective.”

Put simply, that statement is not true. In fact, the Joint Committee’s Technology Task Force report, consistent with recent testimony by university officials before Congress, shows just the opposite.

Put simply, if the ACE statement is inaccurate, it’s because it understates the situation.

5,000 extortion letters to students

The so-called Joint Comittee is a shady entertainment industry shell whose ‘membership’ list hasn’t, so far as I know, been updated for at least five years.

It issues ‘studies‘ and ‘reports‘ designed to portray the cartels as caring corporate entities desperately working with the intransigent US universities and colleges to save the multi-billion-dollar music and movie industries from “devastation” (their word) by ‘educating’ students, whom they call “criminals,” about sharing with each other, something the cartels say is exactly the same as “stealing”.

The RIAA claims its war against US students is effective, and that it’s had university authorities deliver some 5,000 extortion letters to students.

But the US Census Bureau Back to School: 2006-2007 was projecting 7,600,000 students would be enrolled in American colleges and universities by that fall.

Seven-point-six million against five thousand?

And to date, not one student has seen the inside of a civil court or given evidence before a jury of his or her peers.

‘Cool new legal services’

Harvard already stands out as the only Ivy League university to escape RIAA attacks and not at all coincidentally, Charles Nesson, William F. Weld professor of law, Harvard Law School, and founder and faculty co-director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, decided Big 4 attempts to pillory their own customers provided perfect classroom material.

Harvard and other universities bombarded by RIAA sent pre-litigation blackmail notices described by RIAA misinformation officer Cara Duckworth as ‘cool new legal services,’ ought to, “take strong, direct action,” said Nesson and John Palfrey, clinical professor of law and executive director, the Berkman Center.

“Universities should have no part in this extraordinary process.”

In Maine, in a world’s first, Hannah Ames and Lisa Chmelecki at the University of Maine School of Law’s Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic are now officially representing two Maine students, guided by clinic director and U of M associate professor Deirdre Smith.

And in Oregon, in yet another first, state attorney general Hardy Myers is locked in solidly behind the University of Oregon, telling the Big 4 to either put up or shut up.

He also says the RIAA may be illegally spying on UO students and ferreting out data they’re not entitled to.

And in a third world’s first, the University of San Francisco Internet/Intellectual Property Justice Clinic has taken the unprecedented step of assigning students to a New York law firm to help them defend clients under attack by the RIAA.

‘Illegal file sharing on college campuses’

“In the cover letter to the most recent Joint Committee Technology Task Force Report, the Committee states that ‘a growing number of institutions are achieving favorable results with existing technologies, and we believe the process we have initiated with the recent workshop and this report holds promise in developing new, more effective - and broadly acceptable - products’,” say the lobbyists, continuing >>>

While the Technology Task Force acknowledged that there was no “one size fits all” technology solution as “technologies that may prove effective on some campuses may not be acceptable or feasible on others,” it found that technology solutions work and merited development efforts. It stated “because there are campus success stories with using existing technologies, and because the thrust of the recently conducted workshop is on future technologies, the Joint Committee has agreed to conduct a second follow-on project in parallel with its efforts to promote the development of new technologies.” Clearly, the report did not conclude technologies designed to thwart illegal file sharing are ineffective.

As you may be aware, the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities was created in 2002 to address the growing problem of illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing on college and university campuses. Since its formation, the Joint Committee’s mission has been to work to facilitate cooperation between higher education and the entertainment industry in reducing illegal peer-to-peer file sharing through educational efforts, development and enforcement of effective and appropriate institutional policies, use of technologies to assist in network management, and adoption of legal online digital delivery services.

The Joint Committee Technology Task Force has conducted a number of projects examining the use of technological measures to reduce illegal file sharing, including a comprehensive workshop last fall which brought together university chief information officers and network administrators, technology experts from the entertainment industry and commercial vendors to discuss how technology could play a role in eliminating illegal file sharing on college campuses. While the workshop primarily focused on requirements for the development of future technology products, the Joint Committee specifically noted the positive impact that technology solutions can have on illegal file sharing on college campuses.

Specifically, the Committee’s Report Executive Summary noted that the House Science and Technology Committee held a hearing last spring at which witnesses from both higher education and a technology company testified as to the efficacy of implementing certain technological products. For example, one filtering product is now deployed at approximately 70 colleges and universities across the country, and it has demonstrated the ability to impede illegal P2P activity on a number of campus networks. It was also shown that using technological solutions to reduce such infringement on campus can provide a significant cost savings to the institution. One [unnamed] university administrator testified at the hearing that after implementing an existing technology on the campus network, the university saved $1.2 million a year in terms of bandwidth and $70,000 in personnel costs.

The testimony provided by university officials in that hearing and in other forums certainly clearly indicates that technology is an effective deterrent of illegal file sharing. Our experience has shown that any meaningful solutions to reduce or eliminate illegal file sharing on college campuses have been those which incorporate the application of a technology-based deterrent. That is why HR 4137 contains measured provisions asking universities to develop plans that include the consideration of a technology-based deterrent however they best deem is appropriate for their campus.

There is no question that the issue of college based digital piracy is a problem which needs to be addressed this year. Despite the statistical study error discovered earlier this year, the central fact remains that U.S. college students are disproportionately responsible for digital theft of copyrighted materials and that this dynamic is one that needs to be proactively addressed by the university community without further delay. The university community has acknowledged this many times in recent years in testimony before Congress and in representations to working groups on the issue. Unfortunately, the higher education lobby groups are trying to divert attention from the real and immediate problem at hand. University officials who are on the ground at these schools have spoken; there is a large digital piracy problem on college campuses.

The underlying purpose of the copyright theft provisions contained in the HEA legislation is for Congress to gather more information from universities themselves on how best to address the piracy problem which may include technology-based deterrents. Since the goal is to base solutions on accurate data and information, we believe the House version of the legislation advances that objective by building upon the Senate version of the legislation to require the information from universities on what alternatives they are exploring and technology plans they are developing.

We are committed to continuing to work directly with the higher education community.

We continue to invest heavily in innovative pilot projects and new technologies that both help prevent illegal activity on campus networks and that promote responsible digital citizenship and raise awareness of legal avenues to content. However, given the impact of such digital piracy, time is of the essence and we cannot afford mere promises of good will. Action is warranted. Congress is right to act now to ask that the nation’s publicly funded universities respect intellectual property rights in a meaningful way.

As ACE indicated in a letter to its members in October 2007, “we do believe we have a responsibility to work hard to address illegal campus file sharing as a matter of education and ethics” before continuing “[w]e believe that college and university officials must take positive - and appropriate steps to address illegal practices on their own campuses.” HR 4137 reinforces that sentiment and simply ensures appropriate steps, in the measured form of developing anti-piracy plans and exploring potential technology-based alternatives, are undertaken to the extent practicable. This legislation is an important step forward to help safeguard the value of intellectual property and the long-term economic health of our nation in the digital age. We are grateful for your attention to the issue and for allowing us the opportunity to address the provisions of HR 4137.

Definitely stay tuned.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 8:58 am and is filed under MPAA News, RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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