Teacher Fired for P2P Lecture

An anonymous reader writes "A teacher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, was forced to resign after a talk about P2P networks. You can read his side of the story on his blog." From the article: "The day before the conference, the Dean (pressured by the Spanish Recording Industry Association 'Promusicae' as I found out later, and he recognized himself in a quote to the national newspaper El Pais, and even the Motion Picture Association of America, as another newspaper quotes) tried to stop it by denying permission to use the scheduled venue. So I scheduled a second one, and that was denied again. And a third time. Finally I gave the conference on the university cafeteria, for 5 hours, in front of 150 people." Commentary on this story at BoingBoing as well.

Cartel Coffin

[.tardo.]

Hoffa better start makin room in his coffin for this guy...

Re:Cartel Coffin

[WoBIX]

Coffin? We buried him in a...

Someone's at the door, be right back.

Jorge's Diary: Note to Self

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave contraversial lectures to professors with TENURE.

Re:Techinical Point

[Danuvius]

He wasn't fired. He (claims he) was pressurised into resigning. I ain't making any judgement or saying anything else until I've heard an account of events from someone less close to the controversy.

I'm quite certain that "having his contents confined under a pressure greater than that of the outside atmosphere" was not his reason for resigning.

Being pressured, however, may have have had something to do with it.

- The Word Police

Which just goes to show that...

[nurhussein]

nobody expects the Spanish (Recording Industry Association) inquisition!

Re:To make the lecture worth it...

[Rei]

But as far as we can tell, he didn't. He needed a "trackerless" lecture system.

Something I don't get...

[dominion]

Doesn't he have a union or something? I mean, this is Spain, I didn't think things like this could happen there without some kind of repurcussions for the entity doing the firing.

Re:from the faux-news dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

h00pla says: Who cares about being precise, especially when it's important? Close is good enough for me!
h00pla dealt the killing blow to the English language.
h00pla gains 15 experience points.
h00pla gains a level! New title: Slashdot Editor.

-Grandparent AC

Re:from the faux-news dept.

[ninji]

And if you commit a crime, and turn yourself in, you only surrendered and are not 'Arrested' right?

Being forced to resign IS being fired.

/backhandslap

Re:People are pussies.

[gebbeth]

Spending the next 6 months in prison to make your point ( or dead ) even if you are right, isn't cool. Especially when postponing your 'statement' a little will keep you outside.

But its ok to spend a year dead for tax reasons :).

Better yet

[Ironsides]

Could someone host his p2p lecture as worldwide video conferencing thing? I quite interested in what it all was about

Relase it via bittorrent. Nothing like using a P2P network to prove the point.

Re:from the faux-news dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

He was resigned.

Re:Which just goes to show that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet...

so I scheduled a second one, and that was denied again. And a third time.

...that one burnt down, fell over, then sank into the swamp...But the fourth one stayed up, and that's what your gonna get lad.

--AC

Re:And yet some big corporations are working with

[Webmonger]

I think it would be great if they made peer-to-peer illegal. Since IP is a peer-to-peer protocol, you'd be able to shut down the operations of Sprint, Qwest, AOL, Verisign, and millions more. One day of 'peer-to-peer is illegal' would be enough for proof by contradiction.

Re:Resigned != Fired

[gowen]

Surely, if the Director is worried that an audit of his department will uncover unlicensed software, it's the Director and/or the IT guys who should be worrying about their jobs.

First Rule

[hotbutteredhtml]

The first rule about P2P, is you don't talk about P2P!

Re:Pressured?

[cnelzie]

Reading, who knew you could learn so much? ;)

Don't let that out! You don't want the Religious Right in the US to get wind of Reading teaching people to think and understand things!

If they get wind of that, they will start a national campaign to start teaching "Inteligent Learning" via osmosis and straight preaching, cause student's minds are far to precious to over-tax with the burden of learning how to read...

Re:To make the lecture worth it...

[hackstraw]

...he should have ended it with "I'll probably be fired for this, so each of you go tell everybody you know." Or something to that effect.

Just as you should have preceded your comment with "I'll probably get modded down for this..." in order to get moderated higher.

Re:Which just goes to show that...

[killmenow]

Well, certainly their most potent weapon is an almost fanatical devotion to the pop.

Re:Um

[Catbeller]

"great enough to constitute a firing offence (shagging a student, for example)"

There wouldn't be any staff left if that rule were enforced.

Re:Techinical Point

[PCM2]

He wasn't fired. He (claims he) was pressurised into resigning.

Why didn't he just open his mouth?

It's true!

[hawk]

He didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!

:)

hawk

Re:This time they've gone too far.

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote in every presidential election, and every time the presidential candidate whom I voted for ends up with 0 votes *total*.

I don't understand. Are you voting for "asdfjlasjf" or something?

Re:To make the lecture worth it...

[vistic]

I'll probably get modded down for this...

but you should have taken your own advice and preceded your own comment...