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Higher Education Committee Releases Report on P2P 206

Posted by michael from the assigned-reading dept.
djeaux writes "The Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities has released a "Background Discussion of Copyright Law and Potential Liability for Students Engaged in P2P File Sharing on University Networks." The Joint Committee includes representatives from a number of universities, education groups, entertainment industry representatives, and the presidents of RIAA & MPAA. The paper provides an overview of copyright law relating to on-campus P2P file sharing and concludes that "(c)olleges and universities generally do not have a legal duty to control students' private conduct. Students therefore should not assume that their college or university will accept liability for them or provide them with legal representation." The report was distributed to presidents of all institutions that are members of the American Council on Education on Friday, August 8."
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Higher Education Committee Releases Report on P2P More

Higher Education Committee Releases Report on P2P

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  • What a concept! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:11PM (#6680280)
    So, in summary, people should take responsibility for their own actions. What a concept!
    • What are you, some sort of commie or something? this is obviously a mistake, the people of america DEMAND to be led and taken care of!

      I wonder if this will have any effect on MIT? they already decided that mafIIA subpoena's didn't apply to them, right?

      Besides, the students should be using Freenet, anyway.

    • > So, in summary, people should take responsibility for their own actions. What a concept!

      If that's something students actually LEARN at college, it will be money well-spent, and provide a better real-life education than anything else they'd learn in school.

    • Re:What a concept! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gerf ( 532474 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:44PM (#6680552) Journal

      So, in summary, people should take responsibility for their own actions. What a concept!

      What it also infers is that you take responsibility for others' actions as well. I have a friend who is running a server on a campus (please, anonymity here) running Direct Connect. He shares about 60 gigs of data himself, all legal, such as 'nix ISOs, and free videos, clips, and the such. But, i know, and he knows, that there is a lot of copywright infringing going on.

      How can a person like this host a network such as this? He has neither the time nor resources to monitor everything, nor the money to pay for lawyers, or a program to do it for him. What can someone like this do to protect themselves? Encryption, limiting users?

    • Re:What a concept! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @07:18PM (#6680807) Homepage Journal
      It's a concept the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon knew. The Greeks and Romans new it. The Saxons and Normans knew it. Even the founders of the US knew it. But somehow that concept has been lost in the modern US. It's truly sad.

      I just wish I knew exactly where to place the blame. Is it the lawsuit culture, where you are promised (but can never collect) millions of dollars by being a victim? Is it the modern welfare state where you are taken care of from cradle to grave? Is it the university professors who teach students that they can change the world by whining? How the heck are you supposed to learn responsibility as a child when your parents think dropping you off at school is the extent of their parenting obligations?

      Unless the culture of the US makes an about-face, it is doomed. I am not a European making cracks at the US. I am a proudly patriotic US citizen. Which is why I am distressed that the whining mediocrity has taken over.

      The solution won't come from the Democrats or Republicans. It won't come from any one politician, no matter how spiffy their website or fiery their oration. Instead it has to come from the bottom foundations of society. People from every walk of life need to stand up and say "I will be responsible for every action I take!" When the lawyer urges you to sue, spit on his shoes. When the politician promises you money if you vote for him, walk away. When you professor tells you that your condition is the result of evil meat-eating while male Europeans, drop the class.
      • Grandparent: So, in summary, people should take responsibility for their own actions. What a concept!

        Parent: It's a concept the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon knew. The Greeks and Romans new it. The Saxons and Normans knew it. Even the founders of the US knew it. But somehow that concept has been lost in the modern US. It's truly sad.

        I just wish I knew exactly where to place the blame.

        Too funny!

      • Re:What a concept! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        I believe it is probably the corporate welfare culture where fictitious legal entities have they mistaken belief they have all the rights of person, and expect the government to take care of them no matter how inept they are. Rather than creating new works, these entities wants to create laws that force persons to buy the same product over and over again. The hypocrisy is that the entities do not take responsibility for their damage they cause. The pass laws that makes the damage legal and forces the per
      • The solution won't come from the Democrats or Republicans

        (But it will come from right-wing Libertarians!)

        It won't come from any one politician, no matter how spiffy their website or fiery their oration

        (I don't like Howard Dean!)

        Instead it has to come from the bottom foundations of society.

        (Poor people have to change. They have to become less needy. And they should probably dress nicer. I mean really.)

        When the lawyer urges you to sue, spit on his shoes

        (After all, what's a few fatal accidents

      • Re:What a concept! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jonbrewer ( 11894 ) *
        I reluctantly quote the parent troll:

        "It's a concept the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon knew. The Greeks and Romans new it. The Saxons and Normans knew it. Even the founders of the US knew it. But somehow that concept has been lost in the modern US. It's truly sad."

        Please don't tell me that robbery is a recent invention, or that it hasn't been practiced by every generation of humans since the advent of personal property. It's not something new, evil, or at all confined to the United States.

        Yeah, I said tha
      • It won't come from any one politician... ...but one great man. And that man is Arnold Schwarzennegar.

        *wipes tear from eye* I wish I was one of the lucky few who live in California and get to be a part of this great day, the day Arnie first got into office.

        I wish I could say, and proudly say it I would, "I voted Schwarzennegar!"

  • Wow (Score:2, Insightful)

    by zarthrag ( 650912 )
    I can't believe it takes all of those people just to come up with one common sense solution....As if I was gonna march to the Provost's office and demand a lawyer because I'm a pirate...Geez
    • Yes, but the question remains regarding just how readily they will cooperate with RIAA/MPAA subpoenas... That is important, and will make a difference (and is not as common sense).

      The fact that your university is not going to support your defense is well, duh.
    • Yeppp ...

      This is called balanced.

      Joint Committe of Higher Education and Entertainment Communities

      5 higher ed reps.
      3 From Education committees
      11 people from RIAA and other commercial organizations

      So who wrote this document again?

    • Re:Wow...we got a pirate here! (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ...As if I was gonna march to the Provost's
      office and demand a lawyer because I'm a pirate...

      Really? How does a pirate ask for a lawyer?
      "Arrrrrrrrrrrrg! MATEY! Could ye lend me a lawyer? Or should I make ready yer fodder?
  • It would seem that they wrote 13 pages of well duh your not liable (the universities) under safe harbor as long as you follow DCMA procedures duh. You can give them legal help but dont have to. Otherwise it's up to the students to not infringe.

  • Not unresonable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:15PM (#6680330) Journal
    Students therefore should not assume that their college or university will accept liability for them or provide them with legal representation.

    Well, that doesn't seem unreasonable. Although, given some of the complaining you hear ("Dear Ask Slashdot. My university network throttles Kazaa traffic. Don't they know the whole point of college is to provide faster warez downloads? Is this a violation of my civil rights?") I'm sure this will be met with outrage, too.

    • yeah, that and you providing your friends with fast warez downloads ;)
    • Although, given some of the complaining you hear ("Dear Ask Slashdot. My university network throttles Kazaa traffic. Don't they know the whole point of college is to provide faster warez downloads? Is this a violation of my civil rights?") I'm sure this will be met with outrage, too.

      The "outrage" felt about throttled Kazaa is because most of them don't understand the basic economics of universities. They think that tuition + room and board greater than or equal to the cost of services delivered, there

      • Re:Not unresonable (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Otter ( 3800 )
        Universities are one of the most heavily *subsidized* insitutions around. Even as expensive as tuition is, it doesn't come close to covering the cost of delivering the services students get.

        Actually, as a university researcher, I don't agree with that, espececially at private schools. It's only true in the sense that universities consider everything from a supercollider to sexual harassment settlements to be somehow necessary for undergraduate education.

        If you just consider the direct costs of housing, fe

  • Finger pointing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:16PM (#6680337)
    Notice that a meeting of everybody involved in this other than the students have declared that the only one who possiby could be liable are the students?
    • Probably because the students are the ones downloading the files.
    • Thank goodness!!!

      My professor would be in some serious trouble should his P2P site every be discovered!

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:35PM (#6680503)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I can't mod you any higher, so I will agree with you.
      What has basically been decided, IMPO (It's my paranoid opinion), is that the RIAA and the MPAA are not going to sue the universities as long as the university allows the *AA to sue its students.
      I find this troubling as the "University" has always been a bastion of freedoms where students try out what limits are and where these limits should be (sometimes the hard way). Because of this freedom students will become better citizens in the future. Yes, stude
      • 20 years old and sober. I have had 4 beers, 4 glasses of wine/champagne and two rum and cokes in my entire life. Half that was legal to consume as I was in Norway. Don't think that everyone drinks just because you do or did when you were under 21.

        It isn't worth getting busted (eg our football games routinely begin with cops asking for IDs for anyone with a beer in their hand) for something that isn't even all that great to begin with. Seriously, drinking has to be one of the most overrated pastimes EVER.

        -

  • State funded college or university (Score:4, Insightful)

    by David Hume ( 200499 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:17PM (#6680344) Homepage

    Students therefore should not assume that their college or university will accept liability for them or provide them with legal representation.


    This is particularly true at a state funded college or university. Why should tax-payers bear the burden to defend or indemnify students who are accused of copyright infringement?

  • Common Carrier (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AltImage ( 626465 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:17PM (#6680345) Homepage
    It sounds like the *AA are basically trying to extend an informal common carrier status to the universities. Probably in exchange for continued future cooperation. That way the *AA avoids lawsuits from anybody with the money/clout to put up a fight (universities) and they still get to intimidate students through litigation.
    • It sounds like the *AA are basically trying to extend an informal common carrier status to the universities.

      I agree wholeheartedly. I mean, who are the FAA to tell me that I can't fly an unlicensed airplane in the privacy of my own dorm room? It's not even like it's keeping my from buying plane tickets!
    • *AA isn't doing this. [RI|MP]AA is. The difference? Well, the American and Canadian Automobile Associations, Alcoholics Anonymous, and other *AA's probably don't have anything to do with it...

  • Why would one assume (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Microsofts slave ( 522033 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:17PM (#6680348) Homepage Journal
    Why would one assume that your university is going to give you legal representation. The only way i can see someone being represented by their university for somthing like this would be to hand the case over to their law department and let the stdents chew on it.

    • many universities (Score:3, Informative)

      by rebelcool ( 247749 )
      have legal services available to students. UT-Austin, for example, will represent students in civil matters for no charge.
    • When there are issues of academic freedom and free speech at stake, the university damn well better have legal representation for its members. At the very least they need to think about where they draw the lines between who they'll help protect; the university should, for example, protect a student or faculty member who wants to use the university network to share legal mp3s or linux isos.

  • wtf (Score:2, Funny)

    by lostinchicago ( 692439 )
    why did this story turn into spambait

  • "Releases Report on P2P" (Score:4, Funny)

    by H0NGK0NGPH00EY ( 210370 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:19PM (#6680360) Homepage
    Dang. Here I was thinking that some big name committee was getting all tech-saavy and releasing their latest report via a p2p network. But it's just a report about p2p. Why can't the headlines be more clear? I would hate to have to waste my time actually reading the article, after all.

  • All fine and good (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lane.exe ( 672783 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:19PM (#6680362) Homepage
    ...until an *AA bot nails a student in the music or computer science departments for sharing files legally. Then this little philosophy goes right out the window.

  • Two ways to read this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chalst ( 57653 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:19PM (#6680364) Homepage Journal
    First, it means the RIAA etc. have to go after many small fish rather than a few large fish. But, second, it simplifies the case for the RIAA when they do take these actions.

    Vital background reading on this is Larry Solum's posts on "Copynorms", especially his analysis of the RIAA strategy [blogspot.com].

  • If this was made with both media and university interests in mind, then will universities drop any measures beyond throttling bandwidth?

  • Unsummarized issues that we're all wondering... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:22PM (#6680391)
    They won't provide legal representation. Duh. Why would they?

    I'm just wondering why they're caving constantly to the RIAA. It would be one thing if the way the RIAA worked with the legal system required the RIAA to do a little more work to prove their case before they could file subpoenas, but with the way they are allowed to send subpoenas (without initially warning with cease-and-desists) is stupid.

    A club that I am a member of (25 person science fiction club) had a logo that had been designed before I joined. the problem is that the guy who designed it, who had left the club, was too similar to another logo that was copyrighted and trademarked. So, the organization who owned the original image sent us a polite letter asking us to please use up any consumables with the logo and change the logo. They didn't even get so formal as to do a cease-and-desist, a secretary from that organization sent us the letter. We politely complied.

    Personally, if I was sharing data illegally and received a letter from the RIAA asking me to stop it, after some rather unpleasant bodily functions I would bring myself into compliance. Immediately. I suspsect that anyone else doing this would do the same, at least in the short-term. And if the RIAA knew who I was enough to be able to tell me to cut it out, I'd be damn sure that I kept out of trouble there on out.

    By sending out legal subpoenas and filing for financial damages, they've ensured that they get no sympathy from anyone who has ever used an mp3 codec. I'd be a helluva lot more sympathetic if they were more polite initially, with letters first, cease-and-desists second, and court filings third, than my feelings right now, which are summarized as "fuck 'em".

    Back to the inital point though, with colleges frequently bending to give the RIAA what they want, if the RIAA would ask the universities to deal with the filesharers who have been detected with X information on Y ip address, the colleges would probably handle it internally, the courts wouldn't have to get involved, and the offenders would stop. Much more neat and tidy.
    • How could the RIAA send a warning cease-and-desist letter to someone running an anonymous P2P server without any other contact information? The only purpose of these subpoena is to get the contact information. Subpoenas are not lawsuits or fines.
    • The way the RIAA is treating the music-consuming public would be considered insane by any ordinary corporate measure, if that public were actually their customers. In fact they are not ... the RIAA is an industry group and they are doing what they believe will keep their customers happy. The goal of this effort has very little to do with copyright infringement. It has to do with keeping the RIAA relevant, at least in the eyes of the big publishers. It does have to do with money: after all sales are down

      • Re:Unsummarized issues that we're all wondering... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TWX ( 665546 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @08:14PM (#6681212)
        "Personally, I'm proud to be able to say that the last CD I purchased was in 1988. 45's I liked ... got the song I wanted for a reasonable price. The cost/benefit ratio of compact discs, as they have always been marketed, is very poor. People accepted that because there was no alternative (ah, the wonders of monopolism) and the RIAA pronouced it good."

        That's what's really funny in my opinion. The 3" CD standard exists to provide a sort of throwback to the 45, a small, low capacity medium to record on to that can be used to sell singles. I think that the very few CD singles that I've seen, all on 4.5" CDs, is silly. Of course, since the music industry doesn't want you to buy one song from them for $2.00, they want you to buy two songs that you really want and nine that you dislike for $16.99, I understand why they aren't using the format, but one would think that if they released $2.00 CD singles on the small sized CDs that people might actually buy them, rather than spend $70/month for high speed internet with the sole idea of music exchange...

  • University = ISP (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    universities generally do not have a legal duty to control students' private conduct

    Of course not - that's pretty clear. If I rob a bank, whatever institution I happened to have registered at is of course not responsible in any way.

    But... Isn't a little different in that the school is also the students' ISP?
    • If I sell you a gun, and you shoot your wife, should I be held responsible?

      Now, if I sell you bandwidth, and you use it to download copyrighted material, should I be held responsible?

  • This is the last straw (Score:3, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:24PM (#6680411) Homepage Journal
    Students therefore should not assume that their college or university will accept liability for them or provide them with legal representation.

    I've been thinkin' abuut droping out of colege for the past 9 ears. This really doez it, and I mean REALLY. I hereby quit school in furm protest against RAA, DMCA, and all that stuff.
    *hic*

  • You would have thought... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Osrin ( 599427 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:25PM (#6680417) Homepage
    ... that any academic council looking at P2P and "thinking" about the implications would have had the good sense to break this into two parts.

    a) The issues of sharing somebody elses copyrighted material and guidelines for what to do and what not to do.

    and MORE importantly...

    b) The academic benefits of using P2P to share research, essays and other related material between students and the faculty. Imagine the possibilities if EVERYTHING that a university produced was available and indexed in one or more P2P applications.
    • Imagine the possibilities if EVERYTHING that a university produced was available and indexed in one or more P2P applications.

      Would this mean I could 'recycle' someone's term paper from three years ago?

  • who do they think they're kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dogun ( 7502 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:25PM (#6680419) Homepage
    Clearly, they're depressed that MIT and BC (was it BC?) defeated their subpoenas in Boston, so they're trying to convince as many universities as possible that they shouldn't spend any money fighting on behalf of their students, and just give in.

    I applaud schools and ISPs that have been fighting these subpoenas. It's the right thing to do.

    And they don't need a report to tell themselves that they don't need to defend their students. They're just doing what any good institution would do that cared about it's students/employees/whatever.

  • Change the Law (Score:5, Informative)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:27PM (#6680430) Homepage Journal
    Copyright is not a constitutional right like freedom of speech. While the constitution empowers congress to enact copyright laws, congress is not required to actually do so.

    Copyright could be abolished tomorrow, in the US at least, if you could just get enough votes in congress to pass a bill to repeal copyright. That's not as difficult as it may sound, if you consider that more people share files with p2p apps in the US than voted for george bush.

    Change the Law [goingware.com], a section from my article Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads [goingware.com] discusses this in more detail, and suggests several specific steps you can take to reform the copyright laws and make filesharing legal:

    • Speak Out
    • Vote
    • Write to Your Elected Representatives
    • Donate Money to Political Campaigns
    • Support Campaign Finance Reform
    • Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation
    • Practice Civil Disobedience
    Thank you for your attention.

    • No! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Cyno ( 85911 )
      Don't do that. How will we make the RIAA and MPAA spend all their money and go bankrupt if we get rid of these laws that make them want to sue everyone and their kitten?

      Make more copyright laws like the DMCA and more encrypted P2P nets.. encourage sharing large amount of data, its even better if the data contains nothing usable but tip off any type of automated crawling system, and play the RIAA/MPAA's game until they lose. They can't sue everyone, but I wanna see them try.
    • Your web page still doesn't take a solid stance that copyright is always and was always evil. It should be removed through a consitutional amendment, even after the law has been repealed.
      • While I don't suggest repealing copyright through a constitutional amendment, I do suggest amending the constitution in Support Campaign Finance Reform [goingware.com]:

        Personally, I find it unfathomable that corporations are allowed to make campaign donations at all. No one but an individual, natural person ought to be allowed to do that.

        The root of this problem lies in some established legal precedent which makes a corporation the legal equivalent of a person, so that corporations, and not just the people who work fo

    • Compromise? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by anubi ( 640541 )
      Let copyright be valid for seven years.. A Biblical number, no less...

      And enforce the hell out of it during that time.

      And at the end of that time, it becomes public domain.

      So if you want the latest stuff, pay. We are trying to reward the guys that actually *do* something, not guys that sit on their arse milking work they did seven years ago. Would you hire an employee who expects to remain on the payroll because he did something seven years ago? I thought copyright was to reward the artist for creat

      • Re:Compromise? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by anubi ( 640541 )
        oops.. I did not link to what I was referring to. I don't know if they still cover American History in schools since this Patriot Act stuff started becoming all the rage. So I better point it out.

        Boston Tea Party [pbs.org]

        Well, it was taxes and tea in those days that had the people all miffed... could it be things like copyrights and DMCA, coupled with the frustration of not being able to enforce your needs that push people over the edge these days?

      • Let copyright be valid for seven years.. A Biblical number, no less...

        Easy there. A Biblical number would be seven days, not seven years.

    • Re:Change the Law (Score:2, Insightful)

      by penguinlust ( 669507 )
      Actually that was a pretty moronic thing to say. Copyright when not abused is about the best thing that can happen to anything that can be stored electronically. It gives the creator / owner some power to control its distribution. Without it no body would make any money on software, music or writing for that matter.

      I do believe that software patents are a bad thing. At any time as the state of the art advances a software solution to a problem is bound to be created by more than one person within a li
  • Since when have colleges support illegitimate activities anyways?

  • Wait, what the Hell. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:28PM (#6680439)
    Since when are the Universities themselves (and/or their "umbrella groups") supposed to act as unpaid representatives of the RIAA and MPAA?!
  • Allowing others to make digital copies of music, pictures, movies, books, or any other form of data for which you do not hold the copyright to is illegal.

    If you had respected this from the beginning, the DMCA, et al. would have never even been conceived.

    Food for thought.
    • Allowing others to make digital copies of music, pictures, movies, books, or any other form of data for which you do not hold the copyright to is illegal.

      If you had respected this from the beginning, the DMCA, et al. would have never even been conceived.

      Food for thought.

      It could be easily argued that you have no duty to follow a law that you consider immoral. It could even be argued that you have the duty to resist it! Remember that in a democratic system it goes:
      people make ethical judgement -> law.
    • Alright, flamebait. I'll rise.

      Allowing others to make digital copies of music, pictures, movies, books, or any other form of data for which you do not hold the copyright to is illegal.

      Making copyrights last forever is illegal.

      If you had respected this from the beginning, the DMCA, et al. would have never even been conceived.

      If you had respected the constitution, civil disobedience would not be necessary.

      Food for thought.

      Eat me.
    • Correction it's Illegal in the US and many other countries around the world.
    • Fair use exceptiosn allow copying of copyrighted works not owned that is conversing infringing if no money is exchanged..

      For eample I cannot copy a book on xerox at library because I put money in the xerox machine..hoever I can do it at home if I have axerox machine..

    • Last I checked, more people are currently doing what you consider such a heinous crime than voted for the current President of the USA. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

      And for the record, it is 100% legal for me to loan my CD collection to a buddy so that he can copy it. It is also 100% legal for me to loan a book out to someone if they want to photocopy a few pages from it. Ah, living in Canada has its advantages.

      Lastly, the only reason *digital* copies would be any more illegal than analog copies

  • Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chazzf ( 188092 ) <.gro.thguohtpeed. .ta. .notlufc.> on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:33PM (#6680483) Homepage Journal
    Now, if the universities aren't liabe for the actions of their students, are they still obligated to provide information about the actions of said students? I don't know if the article covered that or not.

  • money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by joejg ( 633973 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @06:34PM (#6680485)
    No wonder my tuition is up 7% from last year. We are paying these fools to realize that people should take responsibility for there own actions!

  • Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Students therefore should not assume that their college or university will accept liability for them or provide them with legal representation."

    Did anyone assume they would? My university already says they own all of my software projects from that time period, who would expect them to actually help me out?
  • There are some wonderful bits of understatement in this document:

    "Although debate already rages about whether there is a digital first sale defense for the transmission of a copyrighted work when the sender's work disappears, any argument that a bona fide purchaser of a copyrighted work (such as a CD) can share P2P copies of that work with many others is not likely to be successful."

    "Given recent press coverage, congressional hearings, and Internet chat, students could find it difficult to prove that they
  • I didn't even KNOW there was a "Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities", but I'd sure like to see their report on Client-Server File Sharing, dated though it must be by now...

  • Not much of a solution (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MunchMunch ( 670504 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @07:01PM (#6680692) Homepage
    The problem with this sort of report, aside from the fact that its committee is stacked to the eyeballs with all of the entertainment ghoulies, is that it really doesn't put much thought into the problem beyond what the letter of the law says.

    The real problem is, of course, a resounding imbalance and unreasonable threats of punishment in the copyright laws themselves. It may sound like I'm preaching to the choir, but the copyright laws are pretty clearly well beyond reason. Clearly there must be some protection for copyright, but the fact is, when jailtime and a $150,000 fine are threatened for making a copy of a single song, it goes beyond threatening and becomes absurd. In contrast, I filled up my gas tank today and saw a notice warning drive-offs that if caught they will be fined the price of the gasoline, as well as up to $30 extra for the trouble they caused. That's reasonable law. $150,000 and jail time for an MP3 is just not reasonable law.

    In this case, the law is in fact so unreasonable that I have little patience for those who try to enforce it to its maximum effect, such as the RIAA have been. And instead of asking "Why should the entertainment industries have such a big stick anyways," which I would hope the cream of the academic crop would ask, the colleges seem to be saying with this report, "AIIEEE!!! the entertainment companies have a big stick!"

    But my point is that there's a pretty wide gap between copyright law and intuitive concepts of copyright. Its not a very evenhanded method to simply say "the laws are infallible, and the solution is to inculcate new respect for them." Instead, we should be asking where reasonable middle ground is, and the uncompromising attitude that the RIAA and the MPAA bring to every table that they force their way to is not helping solve things.

  • I was thinking... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by megaversal ( 229407 )
    It says "(c)olleges and universities generally do not have a legal duty to control students' private conduct."

    So does this mean they should no longer be forced to block ports, monitor traffic, etc with anything relating to p2p activities? Sure the uni could do it if they wanted to, but wasn't there a huge big thing about the *AA's wanting unis to help them stop the p2pers. It sounds like they are no longer obligated to control which ports are open on the firewall, etc.
    • Universities can say they do it because of bandwidth concerns, not because of legal reasons. I'm pretty sure that's the number one reason why they do it now anyway. I'm sure the university does not want some computer in the dorm uploading gigabytes of Linux .iso's everyday even if it is perfectly legal.
  • (c)olleges and universities generally do not have a legal duty to control students' private conduct.

    This, coming from a community who wanted to shutdown Kazaa, Morpheus, etc...

    So why would they want to shut down P2P networks if they (the P2P networks) couldn't practially control the users private conduct.

    Why not try and shut down the colleges also?

  • TV shows (Score:4, Insightful)

    by grandmaster_spunk ( 203386 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @07:12PM (#6680762)
    The report mentions TV shows as an example of something that is illegally shared on P2P networks. (pg. 3) However, it also states that courts have held that time shifting of broadcast television constitutes fair use. (pg. 1) It seems to me that, if you left commercials in the recordings (as opposed to removing them), it should be legal to download copies of shows aired on publicly accessible TV. (This would presumably not hold true for premium channels like HBO.)
    • It is consistent with Fair Use Doctrine to allow YOU to Timeshift a program, for yourself.

      As soon as someone is DISTRIBUTING a program, they are breaking copyright law. It doesn't matter if it's being done for the purposes of "Time-Shifting" or "Format Shifting".

      The act of distributing, is copyright infringement, as copyright retains all distribution rights for the copyright holder.
      • Well, to be a little more accurate, any sort of infringement can be
        permitted by fair use. It's probably fair use to videotape something off
        of tv for my parents, and to give them the tape that I made. Fair use
        _may_ apply to any situation. And it _may_ not. You always have to run
        through the fair use analysis.
  • Are underage students who are living on a high school campus doing P2P responsible for their own actions or does that responsibility / liability fall to the school?
    • There is a legal term called "in loco parentis" which basically means that boarding schools have certain legal rights and obligations to act as parents to their students while they are away from home.

      I don't really know, but I would imaging that this would cause the schools to be liable for their students' copyright infringement.

      This wouldn't apply to Universities to the extent that their students are adults, but it is common for people to attend Universities as minors if they ever got put ahead during

  • the best way to make this idiocy irrelevant (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard&ecis,com> on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @08:39PM (#6681352) Homepage
    Boycott the RIAA [boycott-riaa.com] and get everyone you know on board the boycott. Cut the fuckers off at the bank accounts and they'll cease to bother us, and their 0wn3d politicians will look for new masters.

    They've declared war on the entire high tech community, whether we share files or not. Fuck 'em... or more to the point, let's fuck them up.

    If you must have your Britney fix, buy from used record stores.

    However, to make the point that the RIAA label declining sales is due to their own behavior and the crap they are putting out, better buy from independent artists [cdbaby.com]. That's one place to find some, check my sig for another.

    If it isn't played on FM and not available in record stores, it's probably from non-RIAA label sources, to make sure, check any artist you're thinking of buying at RIAA Radar [magnetbox.com].

    If RIAA label sales drop by 5% and indie label and musician sales double, it's all over for the labels... the excuses about PIRACY!!! will no longer play with. . . the people in the multinationals major label CEOs report to.

    If being on a RIAA label is shown to be a negative as far as making money goes... the rush for the exits will start and the RIAA won't be able to afford lobbyist teams anymore.

    Leaving the MPAA out there all by itself, given that the RIAA won't be around to play bad cop anymore. That's the next war.


  • (c)olleges and universities generally do not have a legal duty to control students' private conduct
    Yeah, but the funny thing is that at my college if you were to get into any trouble outside of the college, you would be punished for it by not only the local authorities, but also by the laughable student disciplinary committee. They can get away with it because it doesn't amount to a court so much as it does an internal review board, but it seems to me that a college will do everything in its power to co

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