College funding and P2P filtering

[Ezzaral]

It's not hard to see congressional strings being pulled for this one:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080207-controversial-college-funding-bill-passedp2p-proviso-intact.html

COAA makes a host of changes to the higher education landscape in the US, but for our purposes, the most interesting was the requirement that schools make plans to offer some form of legal alternative to P2P file-swapping and that they also make plans to implement network filtering. Not making such plans would carry no consequences, however, and we're told by House staffers that no one's federal financial aid is in danger.

Regardless of anyone's thoughts on the legal and moral nuances of P2P filesharing, requirements for network filtering have absolutely no place in a college funding bill.

[joshSCH]

That's bull shit. F the mpaa.. lying assholes.. Where is American headed? :(

[jwenting]

any school not teaching its students to obey the law and not steal is not worth the money they get and should therefore not get any money.
Any school actively helping students steal should be held at least in part responsible for that theft, thus any school not blocking pirate 2 pirate networks should face penalties equal to those their students face when using such networks.

[joshSCH]

hahaa.. you forget that it is impossible to block all such sites, and students can always get around the blocks. It isn't like schools aren't trying, they just realize it is a lost cause.

[jwenting]

we had no access to pirate 2 pirate sites at school...
Of course we had no internet access at all :)

So it is quite possible to prevent such access, and prevent students from wasting their time on things not related to their studies while in class, all by simply not providing them with internet access.

It's not as if they need it. A decent school library should contain whatever they require to get their studies completed.

[joshSCH]

Actually, modern colleges utilize the internet every day. At the college I attend, we are required to have e-mail addresses and check our e-mails once a day (e-mail is the #1 form of communication). Bomb threats, police reports, class announcements, etc. are communicated through e-mail.

Also, all information pertaining to the classes are online. Assignments- online, syllabus- online, notes- online, submition of homework- online, helpful tutorials- online,....

We also use the internet to pay for tuition, room and board, and other university services. We can also request transcripts, maintenance, help, etc. all online.

So, as you see.. it would not be so simple just to not offer internet access anymore.

[vmanes]

<snip>
It's not as if they need it. A decent school library should contain whatever they require to get their studies completed.

Have you seen the amount of funding that libraries <don't> get these days? We've insufficient funds to get even a handful of the journals students (and faculty researchers) need, much less keep up on the hardcopy books. And, many of the journals offer online subscription, there are many databases for searching journals, and even some good web content;)

[jwenting]

if the funding now going into those gigabit internet lines they need to facillitate all those pirate 2 pirate networks running at schools is instead piped to the libraries, your problem days are over ;)