Proposed Bill in Tennessee Penalizes Schools for Allowing Piracy

An anonymous reader brings us an Ars Technica report about a proposed bill in Tennessee which would require state-funded universities to enforce anti-piracy standards. The universities would be forced to "track down and stop infringing activity" or risk losing their funding. The U.S. Congress requested last year that certain universities do this voluntarily. Quoting: "Efforts taken by universities thus far to deter and prevent piracy have had mixed results. The University of Utah, for instance, claims that it has reduced MPAA and RIAA complaints by 90 percent and saved $1.2 million in bandwidth costs by instituting anti-piracy filtering mechanisms. However, the school revealed that their filtering system hasn't been able to stop encrypted P2P traffic and noted that students will find ways to circumvent any system. The end result, some say, will be a costly arms race as students perpetually work to circumvent anti-piracy systems put in place by universities."

Re:Ah Good

[rtb61]

Simpler than that. The university or school no longer provides internet access. Instead it creates a separate external entity that is a licensed ISP, that provides internet connections for staff and students, thus giving the school the same protections as a common carrier, whilst still providing a cost effective service.

The insane bat shit logic of penalising and punishing students, for what questionable content publishers deem to be non profit enhancing services provided by schools.

What will state governments do next, mandate that schools become licensed distributors of RIAA/MPAA protected content, and that the revenue be used for funding the school.

protest on March 5th in Nashville

[kaldari]

A major protest is planned for Wednesday, March 5th in downtown Nashville. 8AM, corner of 6th Ave. and Union (near the capital building). Come and show your opposition to this ridiculous legislation.

Re:Ah Good

[Dr. Eggman]

What will state governments do next, mandate that schools become licensed distributors of RIAA/MPAA protected content, and that the revenue be used for funding the school.

Schools already tried that something sort of like that themselves, (probably as a stop-gap against RIAA litigation,) it didn't really work out so great... [arstechnica.com]

Re:American Schools

[Asky314159]

In America, the word 'school' can correctly be used to describe any educational institution, regardless of age. If you're talking specifically about children and teenagers, you attach an adjective, like 'K-12 schools', 'elementary schools', 'middle schools', or 'high schools'. If you're talking about a place to get a degree, 'university' and 'college' are used interchangeably. But all of them can be described as 'school'.

Re:Ah Good

[Atlantis-Rising]

No, but Microsoft does. Not only does DreamSpark [msdn.com] offer college students free software, Microsoft gives it away like candy at their promotional events.