Universities Cope with New Anti-Piracy Requirement; Network World, 6/15/09

Joan Goodchild via Network World; Universities Cope with New Anti-Piracy Requirement:

"David Reis, director of IT security and policy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, has been on what he calls a "nine-month journey" to figure out exactly how he's going to make sure his school doesn't break the law --even though they were never in trouble in the first place.

Reis' headaches began at the end of last summer, just after President Bush signed into law the Higher Education Opportunity Act, the first reauthorization of the Higher Education Act since 1998. The act included several new provisions, but the one that has Reis and others on college campuses concerned is a new requirement that schools ensure they are doing all they can to combat illegal file sharing among students. The new rules, according to the wording contained in the legislation, requires institutions to develop plans to "effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents." Schools must also "to the extent practicable, offer alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property." Any institute found to be non-compliant could lose federal funding.

The provision made its way through due to the heavy lobbying efforts of groups such as the Recording Industry Assocation of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. Until recently, the RIAA had been waging their fight to stop piracy among students by filing individual lawsuits against those accused of illegal file sharing. But recently the RIAA has said it has abandoned that strategy and will now focus efforts on working with Internet service providers to issue warnings to violators. They have also lauded this new provision in the HEOA.

But Reis said illegal file-sharing has never been a problem at Thomas Jefferson University and the requirement uses a broad brush to paint a picture that is inaccurate in many instances.

"We have not received one complaint about one student. Yet now we have to go out and incur the cost to solve a problem that we didn't really have," he said.

Reis estimates he will spend approximately $100,000 implementing new hardware and software in order to be in compliance with the regulation."

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/061509-universities-cope-with-new-anti-piracy.html

Obama Administration Mulls Constitutionality of Copyright Act, Wired, 2/19/09

Via Wired, Obama Administration Mulls Constitutionality of Copyright Act:

"In a few weeks, we'll likely know the Obama administration's position on whether it supports hefty monetary awards in file sharing litigation brought by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The Bush administration's position was clear. It supported the Copyright Act's penalties of up to $150,000 per infringed song.

"Congress acted reasonably in crafting the current incarnation by ensuring that it serves both a compensatory and deterrent purpose. Congress established a damages range that provides compensation for copyright owners in a regime in which actual damages are hard to quantify," the Bush administration wrote in 2007...

The minimum penalty under the Copyright Act equals a ratio of about 750 times the actual injury, assuming the value of a single music track costs $1 to purchase. Rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts say financial punishments exceeding a 9-to-1 ratio are unconstitutional."

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/obama-administr.html

Bush Enacts PRO-IP Anti-piracy Law - PC World, 10/14/08

Bush Enacts PRO-IP Anti-piracy Law:

"U.S. President George W. Bush Monday signed into law a bill designed to increase protection of intellectual property (IP) such as software, films and music by raising penalties for infringement and creating a national "IP czar."

The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007, or PRO-IP Act, creates a high-ranking IP protection overseer, appointed by the Senate and reporting directly to the president. The position's first appointee will likely come from the next U.S. administration...

"The bill only adds more imbalance to a copyright law that favors large media companies. At a time when the entire digital world is going to less restrictive distribution models, and when the courts are aghast at the outlandish damages being inflicted on consumers in copyright cases, this bill goes entirely in the wrong direction," said Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based digital rights group, after the passage of the Senate version of PRO-IP in late September."
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/152214/bush_enacts_proip_antipiracy_law.html

Commerce Dept Cites Bogus Stats, Chamber Of Commerce Uses Them To Ask Bush To Accept Copyright Czar - Techdirt, 10/6/08

Commerce Dept Cites Bogus Stats, Chamber Of Commerce Uses Them To Ask Bush To Accept Copyright Czar:

"In urging President Bush to sign into law the ProIP bill, which would give him a copyright czar (something the Justice Department had said it it doesn't want), the US Chamber of Commerce is claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy. Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081003/1946432453.shtml

Fiction or Fiction: 750,000 American Jobs Lost to IP Piracy - Wired.com, 10/3/08

Fiction or Fiction: 750,000 American Jobs Lost to IP Piracy:
"Declaring that 750,000 Americans are out of work because of intellectual property piracy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is urging President Bush to sign legislation creating a cabinet-level copyright czar to oversee expanded IP enforcement efforts.
Those are eye-popping numbers, equaling 8 percent of the official number of 9.4 million unemployed Americans.
But the origin of that 750,000 number -- which was included Thursday in a Chamber of Commerce lobbying letter (.pdf) to the president -- is a mystery."
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/fiction-or-fict.html

Copyright Czar's Fate in Bush's Hands; Veto Looms - Wired.com, 9/29/08

Copyright Czar's Fate in Bush's Hands; Veto Looms:
"[T]he Bush administration also doesn't want a copyright czar, a position on par with the nation's drug czar Congress created in 1982 to wage the War on Drugs...
The proposed copyright czar, a position which requires Senate confirmation, "constitutes a legislative intrusion into the internal structure and composition of the president's administration. This provision is therefore objectionable on constitutional separation of powers grounds," the White House wrote lawmakers.
That was code for the Bush administration being in no mood to commence another war, this one the War on Piracy. The government is too busy battling the War on Terror and the War on Drugs."
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/copyright-czars.html