File Sharing at College and the Repercussions
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Kat came across an article regarding file sharing on college campuses and the possibility of the schools losing all funding from the Government as a result. As you will see, she got pretty heated in her argument against this. SC_Thor and Wirlesspacket chimed in with us on this, as well. You’ll have to excuse the times they appeared to “talk over” me. I sort of kept forgetting they can’t hear me unless I push the keyboard shortcut I set up for Ventrilo.
According to BroadbandReports.com:
Democrats are pushing a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would force colleges to not only deter p2p use on campus, but also offer students alternative options. The proposal, obviously supported by the entertainment industry, threatens to pull federal funding from schools if they fail to implement “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.” As you might expect, schools aren’t so keen on risking billions in funding just because they aren’t running their networks the way Hollywood would like.
I know that piracy is rampant, and colleges are breeding grounds for this. Heck, Napster was started in a college dorm room. But is this going too far? More information from CNet:
The U.S. House of Representatives bill (PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student.
According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students… even ones who don’t own a computer… would lose federal financial aid.
The prospect of losing a combined total of nearly $100 billion a year in federal financial aid, coupled with the possibility of overzealous copyright-bots limiting the sharing of legitimate content, has alarmed university officials.
Kat feels this is way over the top, and looking at it more, I have to agree. Most likely, this will never pass. If it does, it could very well cause a lot of students to end up not being in college if schools refuse to implement this, and lose their funding. On the other hand… I can foresee quite an uproar if this passes and schools DO comply. Students who don’t own their own computer, or who actually follow the law already… will NOT be happy to be “punished” and charged fees for things they don’t use.
Edit to add excellent comment from Chris Clemons:
Hey Chris. I almost lost my mind reading this post. I was completely unaware of this problem until now and I’m floored by the ridiculousness of it all. If an educational institution wants to get overly political and jump on the bandwagon by further bridging the gap between real life and Hollywood BS where lots of money is still not lots and lots of money and force students who are already hitting up their parents for upwards of $20k a year for more, I don’t think I can watch it happen. Now, I know it is a Democratic issue being passed down to our schools, but something as ludicrous as this should never have even made it past the head of our nation’s most overpaid political celebrities. I truly believe the educational systems should stand up for this debate.
Another edit to add a story and recommendation from MArk:
Hey Chris,
Spring quarter, I was downloading a torrent at school and had some other software apparently still sitting in my queue seeding. One of these was a Norton Ghost bootable image that i didnt even realize was sitting there. Anyways, I get a nasty email from the school saying that I was sharing illegal files that they would turn off my internet access… and that I had to meet with a Dean or some academic affairs committee.I met with the Dean and he explained to me that there’s an outside agency sitting right on the other end of the school’s internet connection monitoring all the bits and pieces of data, searching for their client’s packets being illegally shared. Yhey saw me sharing Norton and told the university. Basically it resulted in a written acknowledgment that I wont do it again and will remove the offending material.
It was a first offense… of course subsequent offenses would be more severe. The file pretty much just exists for their reference but will never go outside that office if I dont ‘offend’ again.
Also, our school offers a free (to students) music/video subscription service. Ruckus is a site that you just register with your school email and you have access to most hits and almost anything you can think of. It’s a very quick download. It uses wma copy protection and allows you to keep the license for each song for a month after which you (right click) renew it for another month. There’s no limit on the amount of songs you download, and since this option is legal, I was doing downloading at school.
I don’t know. What do you think? What other alternatives are out there? Do you feel this is the answer? Leave me a follow-up comment to this video, or email me at chris@pirillo.com
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37 Comments
Alias
November 13th, 2007
at 9:21am
Paul Millerwrote an interesting post today on Here’s a quick excerpt Kat came across an article regarding file sharing on college campuses and the possibility of the schools losing all funding from the Government as a result. As you will see, she got pretty
Darknet
November 29th, 2007
at 8:30am
Chris Pirillo
stikilines
November 13th, 2007
at 7:43am
Kat came across an article regarding file sharing on college campuses and the possibility of the schools losing all funding from the Government as a result. As you will see, she got pretty heated in her argument against this. … sourcedhere
Windows Vista Torrent
November 13th, 2007
at 10:26am
Tech InterviewsFile Sharing at College and the RepercussionsHow to Stream Video Online for Free How to Find Hidden Music in Windows XP Top Cool Laptop Accessories Boot Camp Hard Drive Warning Playing Dead How to Erase Files Securely How to View Weather Maps in Google Earth
SocioBiblog
November 13th, 2007
at 9:04am
File Sharing at College and the Repercussions(Chris Pirillo )
Tyler S. Miller
November 13th, 2007
at 2:17pm
File Sharing at College and the Repercussions - Nov 13, 2007 - chris@pirillo.com (Chris Pirillo) How to Stream Video Online for Free - Nov 13, 2007 - chris@pirillo.com (Chris Pirillo) How to Find Hidden Music in Windows XP
MipoFilms
November 13th, 2007
at 4:42am
lol oh god im old
pancake292
November 13th, 2007
at 5:27am
stop interrupting him!!!!!!!!!
just stfu chris is way better then you
willaspire
November 13th, 2007
at 6:38am
my school is in bed with the RIAA
and RIAA are suing students who P2P
lrroberb
November 13th, 2007
at 6:46am
lol lost of funds was not my first thought on repercussion. i was thinking more of how easy it would be to track down a pirate in a campus.
osbert
November 13th, 2007
at 7:28am
“dee – teeer”
This woman needs to stfu till she’s had pronunciation lessons.
Kaleb34
November 13th, 2007
at 7:40am
there is a simple solution here. Ussually first years go in to REZ. Residence thats where the network is sooooooooo charge them Resident people. Its a simple problem. People who live off campus, then no fee. I think that makes the most sense.
Antman1005
November 13th, 2007
at 9:48am
Poor chris can bearly get a word in on his own show lol.
kpslover
November 13th, 2007
at 9:52am
LOL! oh god I’m old! I am a college student who uses the Wi-fi on campus to get online when I am in school. I have my own network to connect at home. It’s not fair that they could take away the financial aid to deter p2p file sharing. I limewire at home. How much more money does the RIAA wants? we need the money to advance our education. the RIAA has hoo much money. The college already bans pornography, and p2p file sharing. Thats about it. It is just wrong!
zilverzero
November 13th, 2007
at 11:35am
only the best things are free
Bill
November 13th, 2007
at 6:20am
” The prospect of losing a combined total of nearly $100 billion a year in federal financial aid” ? and then use that FOR What !
More BS in IRAQ? oh PLZ!!!!
I don’t believe P2P should be allowed on campus… that’s a little stupid. But don’t cut the funding for education!
javalu882005
November 13th, 2007
at 1:21pm
I don’t think Celiees need any more money to buy drug and sex.
steve
November 13th, 2007
at 7:18am
That will be very messed up if colleges go down that route. People that are not in college really have no idea of what college kids do. Which is thrive on the internet.
gswd
November 13th, 2007
at 8:41am
Maybe it will bring back the concept of the “mix tape” where people will just share CD/DVDs that they burn of popular music.
bmd66
November 13th, 2007
at 7:48pm
Lol, this fool cant even control his own guests!
Nathan Jongewaard
November 13th, 2007
at 1:23pm
Chris, do you really think it is the job of colleges and universities to police the copyrights of the RIAA and MPAA member corporations? In other words, colleges and universities ought to conform to whatever behavior the richest and most powerful corporations in the U.S. would prefer? Further, these corporations ought to be empowered by the federal government to stop the flow of students’ educational funding if these public institutions refuse to do their bidding? What other demands should corporations, in cahoots with fat-cat politicians, be able to foist on our public colleges and universities? To what other industries will these institutions be beholden? Are you beginning to see how appalling a development this is?
billzkustomz
November 13th, 2007
at 9:54pm
chris you should have said “shut the fuck up kat”
jgreenlow
November 14th, 2007
at 1:51am
Chris! I know you can BOOT her do it NOW!!!!!
jgreenlow
November 14th, 2007
at 2:01am
Oo ya > GOOGLE YOUR OWN NAME that is public record??
Bajaman556
November 14th, 2007
at 7:51am
She needs to clean her ears. Chris can’t get a damn word in. Let the man speak!!!!
sh0rty612
November 14th, 2007
at 7:54am
i would have cut her mike or somthin gosh u couldest even get a word out on ur own video
Bmk87ca
November 14th, 2007
at 4:36pm
LOL “i’d rather live in Canada” let me tell you our studdent loan services are bullshit here too.
coolwater1
November 15th, 2007
at 3:50am
notice the long pause and “the i dont know” and you guys are worried that he cant get a word in? lol..
Bill @ Racine
November 15th, 2007
at 8:11am
Maybe this is the wake up call that both the schools and the students need. With the schools KNOWINGLY doing nothing to prevent piracy and yes it is PIRACY – they are by omission granting it validity.
They should be monitoring it and penalizing the students for doing so. If you are caught plagiarizing a paper, you can be expelled. Why then is stealing given such a carte blanche pass?
Why we have laws in the first place is for situations where people are unable or unwilling to police themselves. Now I don’t agree with the bill to force the schools to sign up for some other service, that’s not right. But I think threatening them with loss of federal funding is great. All of the honest students out there can now get on their schools case about closing up these holes and stopping this theft from continuing.
For the price they charge for tuition these days, the schools ought to be able to hire the best network engineers going. Maybe even some of them attended school there?
Either way – they need to get their heads out of the clouds and come back to earth. There is a penalty to pay for doing wrong and they just found out that they are not exempt in their ivory towers.
Chinookman
November 15th, 2007
at 12:08pm
College is the breeding ground for all level of thoughts yes even for the 60’s hippie drug smoking liberals now in congress. This is way over the top to force the colleges to help Hollywood rake in the profits. Hollywood loses money because of poor production crap not to P2P. Real financial pirates are from overseas mass marketing pirates. College is where kids learn experiment push the envelop and challenge the status quo.
What will it take for the Amerikan sheeple to wake up to a Fascist kountry komrade? For the colleges to go along is also insane where is the guts, courage of the leadership of the universities to tell Hollywood to take a hike and shove it…??? More gutless pansies???
Incredible yet many sheeple wannh vote for Hitlery…WOW…amazing…..
brickan2
November 21st, 2007
at 8:06pm
Of course they can take measures but what the hell does a company have to do with federal funding? Federal funding – the state has NOTHING to do with the private sector.
Cleansation515
November 21st, 2007
at 10:53pm
Omfg shut up bitch.
ugoogalee
November 24th, 2007
at 4:28am
I feel like chris’s mic is not even on and they cant hear him
Mmichel07
November 24th, 2007
at 9:00am
in my scool they stop all torrent downloads..and other file sharing….but we get free music and videos (movies)
Robertlc
December 11th, 2007
at 12:58am
And of course you never hear about all the bands whose lives record companies have ruined or the fact that for all their bitching the music industry is making more money than they have ever made in history. Not only is “stealing” music ok its patriotic. Fuck the rich who think they can tell poor people what to do.
sfjoey2003
February 19th, 2008
at 9:17am
Who is the voice of the lady speaking? It’s so Annoying. Chris way to go on your videos.
jjaaccck
March 28th, 2008
at 11:02am
thats kat she is awesome