RIAA Nukes Public Universities

[Tarryk]

http://www.bizorigin.com/2007/riaa_nuclear_option

What follows beyond this snippet from the article is my personal opinion, and is not necessarily shared by anyone else in GSP or elsewhere.

Essentially, this means that the Universities will have to become the Copyright cops. Additionally, the Universities will have no choice but to provide some sort of subscription service for music and videos to ALL students. What are the options that are out there? Campus wide Napster or Rhapsody subscription? Either that, or risk risk loosing the financial aid.

What really bothers me is that the copyright holders (essentially RIAA and MPAA) are private parties - why are they being given these extraordinary powers?

Quite simply, because they are corrupt lobbyists. They have the U.S. government in their pocket, and they only continue to exist because of that stranglehold they have on our laws. They serve no purpose but to make money at the expense of anyone and everyone in the music industry, especially the artist and the consumer, and they will continue to strive to make more money using the only method that's left available to them: by manipulating the law so that they may reap the highest financial gain without doing ANYTHING productive whatsoever. It's how they started, and it's how they continue to thrive.

The RIAA are a collection of thieves disguised as bureaucrats, offering nothing of any redemptive value to anyone, anywhere. The artists write the music, the artists perform the music, and the internet now distributes the music. That leaves the RIAA without a job. Their only recourse is to desperately sue, strangle, attack, and destroy any and every opponent of their archaic system of legal money laundering that they can. In the process, they have evolved away from having anything to do with the actual industry of recording, and walked directly into being a legalized mafia for audio entertainment, with the U.S. government backing them due to their own ignorance about how the industry has evolved.

The RIAA should be destroyed. It has zero merit, zero value, and zero potential. It exists, in all possible translations of it's current operational business model, solely to steal from you.

There's little we can do right now. But we can learn more. Read up on the RIAA. Follow them and see what they're doing. Help us do to them what they've been doing to the music industry since their inception: attempted destruction. They'll slip up sooner or later and make a wrong turn in congress. Then, somehow, we can bring them down for good and give music back to the people who write it and listen to it.

[Dynamiks]

Okay, Now while I am not in favour of the RIAA or any other body that seeks to stop people enjoy music.

I do share the majority of Tarryk's views on the RIAA as whole - they definitely need to become 10k% more accountable to the government, the artists that they represent and everyone else!

Unfortunately though, the original article that TK has quoted here is some of the worst press I have had the displeasure to read..

In all seriousness.. Go to the actual bill submission and read it. There is no mention of the extremist measures that this article claims!

Lets take a little look at this blog spot..

The Headline: Now RIAA wants Universities to get campus wide Napster subscription or “lose all federal financial aid”

Well no, that is not what the bill says at all.
The actual wording of the bill states that the University shall

"to the extent practicable develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as explore technology based deterrants to prevent such illegal activity"

Please note those words "To the Extent Practicable"

Now what this Sunny Klara in the very first sentance of his aricle writes:

Why am I angry? The new Higher Education Bill (HEA §494) requires that the Universities stop all P2P downloads that RIAA doesn’t like AND buy Napster or Rhapsody subscriptions for every student on the campus or lose all federal financial aid.

Well Sunny, that is one possible solution.. but not a realistic or practicable one... The bill does NOT state that a uni has to provide anything of the sort!! It has to take praticable measures to help prevent illegal activities..

Reading on further we see a section of the bill:

Sec. 494 Each eligible institution participating in the federal aid program shall:

* provide annual disclosure/warnings to the students applying for or receiving financial aid, stating that:
o
o P2P file sharing may subject them to civil and criminal liability;
o summary of penalty for violation of copyright laws;
o University’s policy of disciplinary action for using university’s IT for unauthorized downloads; and
o the actions that the University takes to detect such activities;
* develop plans for offering alternative to illegal downloading or P2P distribution; and
* develop plans to deter illegal downloading.

Well number one.. This is actually Sec 487 (you can read it for yourself on page 382 of the pdf bill) You could at least quote the correct section...
I also see educating students regarding illegal activities as a positive rather than negative.

In summary:
Does the bill need a LOT more work? Yes, it definitely does! The letter posted HERE is exactly what should be occuring! (Incidently the whole top 25 piracy schools ammendment has been dropped by Senator Reid - its dead.. for now?)

Does this article accurately by Sunny Klara accurately detail what this bill if passed would cause to happen? No.. It gives one radical and extreme possible solution.

If you are passionate about the topic or about music copyright in general, please do yourself a favour and research it! Get all the facts that you can! Then, if you feel that it is appropriate - write to the people concerned (as the Higher Education Members of the Joint Committee did) and express your views.

Don't let the "press" mislead you with bull#$%^!!! Instead, use eye catching headlines like these to trigger your own research and get the facts before you go off half cocked!

[Tarryk]

I have read the bill. And while I understand where you're coming from in your translation, you seem to be approaching it from two standpoints that I cannot afford myself to look at it from:

1. That the RIAA's intentions have the remote possibility of being honorable.

and

2. It is the public schooling organization's responsibility to not only act as the copyright police for the RIAA, but their responsibility to install "practical" deterrents.

EDIT: These standpoints are not necessarily wrong by any kind of default. They are debatable and loose on general grounds. But I swing waaaay to the left on this one, having seen quite enough changes in the law by them. What follows is the theory that the bill itself is not nearly so dangerous as those who are ready to utilize, amend, and wield it like a broadsword against the public.

When it comes down to the wire, any bill that leaves things as vague as this bill is doing ("practicable measures") will INVARIABLY, as history teaches time and again, be retranslated in court by the RIAA in order to do what it does best: Win unethical lawsuits with full congressional approval.

I share the views of that article's writer on the basis of knowledge of what the RIAA is capable of, and what their true intentions are. Those intentions are being made clear in this, and all vague rhetoric within the bill will be easily amended into very unjust and fine-printed rules set in place by the organization who created it: the RIAA.

An organization, I might add, that has no legal grounds to write or pass ANY bills. Yet they do, consistently and regularly, because they have the U.S. congress convinced that they know exactly what they are doing, and that they are doing it for the protection of all the "intellectual property" that exists out there, whether or not they own it. This is because so long as such presumable protection measures are in place, they will retain the authority to amend those measures in order to gain ground against the evil perils of the internet.

And in this case, they want to gain that ground the same way they always do: at the expense of someone else. In this case, the already-financially ruined american public schooling system.

There is nothing ethical or honorable about this bill, no matter how vague or re-translatable it may seem. It's purpose is obvious, and in my opinion, blatantly unjust.

[Dynamiks]

There is nothing ethical or honorable about this bill, no matter how vague or re-translatable it may seem. It's purpose is obvious, and in my opinion, blatantly unjust.

Whoa hang on there.. This bill is about a hell of a lot more than the RIAA.. I do concede that the RIAA does have its grubby little paws involved in a VERY small section of the bill... but let's not throw out the baby with the bath water!

The parts that specifically apply to the RIAA are sections 487 and 494 of Part G of the bill.
- maybe a page and a half of a 750 page bill!

Yes, these points do need to be researched, discussed, ammended and quite possibly removed.

There is a lot of stuff in the bill pertaining to loans and making tertiary education more accessable, Educating teachers, multiculturalism etc etc..

Here is a quick LINK to the pdf of the bill in it's entirety

[Tarryk]

To elaborate, I am aware, I was only ever referring to those particular sections, which were in fact submitted and worded by the RIAA / CRB.

Yes. As stated. I read it. (not the entire thing, obviously, just the sections in question)

[Gridfan]

What creeps me out is that this is "tucked away" inside a 750 page bill which primary focus is on higher education?

The RIAA would never dear propose stuff in a Anti-Piracy bill alone.
Then again, US politicians and lobbyists in particular always love to attach other stuff to larger (and sometimes unrelated) bills.

If this was done properly then ALL anti-piracy legislations would be under it's own separate section of the law where anyone could easily see all aspect and restrictions related to anti-piracy and copy protection.
(why these particular pages was not added to the copy protection law is really odd as that is where it belongs really).

Then again, corporate lawyers and lobbyists don't want it easy (for the average non-legal person), if it was easy they'd have no jobs.