p2pnet.net News:- Big Music’s invasion of Penn State University is now all-but complete.

Penn was the first University to be suckered into a scheme under which it’s marketing ‘product’ from the Big Four record labels direct to students.

Now, “professors can directly link copyrighted works to their online course syllabuses, and students can download the music in their dorm rooms, in off-campus apartments or in study labs,” says a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.

Penn State president Graham Spanier described it as “the most exciting development” yet in a two-year-old effort by a national task force he co-chairs to “abolish music piracy”, says the story.

The ‘task force’ is a Hollywood scam called the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities (JCHEEC). The other co-chair is one of Big Music’s Main Men in the US – Cary Sherman, president of the music industry owned RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Somehow, the RIAA, aided and abetted by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has turned a number of colleges and universities into police and sales units acting for, and on behalf of, the entertaiment industry.

What “abolishing music piracy” has to do with higher education only the universities involved know.

“Spanier said more is at stake than just fending off the legal risks associated with illegal file-sharing that occurs across college computer networks,” says the report, quoting him as stating, “It’s an ethical and moral issue. We are charged with helping millions of students who are making the transition from adolescence to adulthood to develop an appreciation of, and respect for, intellectual property.”

Penn State pays an undisclosed fee to Napster – the struggling music ’service’ – which in turn pays royalties to copyright holders, says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, adding:

“The fee is low enough that the school was able to absorb the cost into an existing $175-a-semester information technology fee that supports a range of services including campus computer labs.”

‘Loss-leader’ might be a better way of describing it.

Amazingly, there have been no complaints from parents who are, in effect, now subsidizing the record label cartel with fees that are supposed to go towards educating students, not boosting corporate music sales.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2004 at 4:02 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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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