[Infowarrior] - Anti-P2P college bill advances in House

[Richard Forno]

Anti-P2P college bill advances in House

By Anne Broache
http://www.news.com/Anti-P2P-college-bill-advances-in-House/2100-1028_3-6218
834.html

Story last modified Thu Nov 15 16:16:39 PST 2007


WASHINGTON--The U.S. House of Representatives has taken a step toward
approving a Hollywood-backed spending bill requiring universities to
consider offering "alternatives" and "technology-based deterrents" to
illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.

In the House Education and Labor Committee's mammoth College Opportunity and
Affordability Act (PDF) lies a tiny section, which dictates universities
that participate in federal financial aid programs "shall" devise plans for
"alternative" offerings to unlawful downloading, such as subscription-based
services, or "technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity."
The committee unanimously approved the bill Thursday.

Supporters and opponents of the proposal disagree, however, on what the
penalty would be for failure to comply with the new rules. The proposed
requirements would be added to a section of existing federal law dealing
with federal financial aid.

Some university representatives and fair-use advocates worry that schools
run the risk of losing aid for their students if they fail to come up with
the required plans.

"The language in the bill appears to be clear that failure to carry out the
mandates would make an institution ineligible for participation in at least
some part of Title IV (which deals with federal financial aid programs),"
Steven Worona, director of policy and networking programs for the group
Educause, said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Worona acknowledged that "there does appear to be a great deal of confusion
with respect to what penalties would be involved in not carrying out the
mandates in this bill." Still, Educause, which represents college and
university network operators, continues to "strongly oppose these mandates,"
he said.

House committee aides respond that failure to craft those antipiracy plans
would not imperil financial aid awards. A fact sheet distributed by the
committee this week attempts to dispel "myths" that it argues are being
circulated by "supporters of intellectual property theft."

"The provisions do ask colleges, to the extent practicable, to develop plans
for offering students alternative legal ways to file share, as well as plans
to prevent file sharing, but this would not be included in the financial aid
program participation agreements colleges enter into with the U.S.
Department of Education," committee spokeswoman Rachel Racusen told CNET
News.com in an e-mail after Thursday's vote. "Contrary to what critics are
saying, these provisions would not put students or colleges at risk for
losing financial aid."

Nor would the bill strip away financial aid if schools fail to stop piracy
on their campuses, to sign up for "legal" subscription media services like
Ruckus.com and Napster for their student body, to report student violations,
or to implement any specific antipiracy policies, Racusen said.

The only piracy-related information that schools would have to provide to
their students and employees in conjunction with their financial aid
agreements is a description of "the policies and procedures related to the
illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials," Racusen
said.

If institutions fail to heed the new rules, it would be up to the Department
of Education to decide the consequences, a committee aide said. For related
reporting requirements, such as school safety plans, that has typically
involved simply keeping after universities to provide the mandated
information, the aide added.

That reporting requirement was also the core of an amendment offered by
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and approved this summer as part of his
chamber's counterpart higher education bill. University representatives have
called that provision a "reasonable compromise."

But in an earlier draft of that amendment, Reid also wanted to require the
Secretary of Education to devise a list of the 25 schools with the highest
levels of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing, based on entertainment industry
statistics. For those 25 institutions, their financial aid would have been
conditioned on devising "a plan for implementing a technology-based
deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of
intellectual property," according to university groups that opposed the
measure.

That means the House provision, by expanding that requirement to all
schools, not just the 25 on the watch-list, is seemingly broader than the
original Senate amendment, according to Educause's Worona. After an outcry
from universities, Reid ultimately scrapped that idea.

Opponents question fairness, privacy issues
The Association of American Universities wrote a letter to House committee
leaders last week urging them not to revive that idea in their own
forthcoming higher education bill. The letter was signed by the chancellor
of the University of Maryland system, the president of Stanford University,
the general counsel of Yale University, and the president of Pennsylvania
State University.

"Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in
all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid--including
Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend
college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to
compete in the 21st-century economy," they wrote last week. "Lower-income
students, those most in need of federal financial aid, would be harmed most
under the entertainment industry's proposal."

An AAU spokesman said Thursday that his organization still has concerns
about the final provision in the approved House bill but declined to
elaborate, indicating the group is prioritizing other areas of the bill that
cause schools greater heartburn.

Other opponents of the antipiracy provisions argue that merely requiring
such a plan from universities at all, regardless of the penalties involved,
is misguided. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance, argued that
pressuring schools to strike deals with content providers could indirectly
raise the cost of students' tuition, as schools will inevitably pass the
costs of legal download services on to students in some fashion.


Another concern from opponents is the possibility of privacy invasions
brought on by the technology-based deterrents schools would be
encouraged--albeit not explicitly required--to adopt. In addition to the
"plan" requirement, one section of the bill would offer voluntary grants
over the next five years for schools, in partnership with outside
organizations, to use toward efforts to concoct effective, reasonably priced
antipiracy technology tools. Opponents argue those tools amount to spying on
students' network activities.

Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a group that advocates for
preservation of fair-use rights, said she doesn't buy the committee's
arguments that no penalties will arise if universities don't develop
antipiracy plans.

"If it had no teeth, (the Motion Picture Association of America) would be
criticizing it," she said in a telephone interview.

The MPAA, for its part, has heartily endorsed the provisions, with CEO Dan
Glickman saying in a statement upon the bill's introduction: "We are pleased
to see that Congress is taking this step to help keep our economy strong by
protecting copyrighted material on college campuses."