If you illegally download music, Big Brother may be watching you. Now, however, due to a new financial-aid bill by Congress, Big Brother could no longer be the federal government or the recording industry, but the S.J. John P. Schlegel, instead.
The 2007 College Opportunity and Affordability Act would force universities wishing to receive federal grants, money set aside for student financial aid, into police roles of the music-sharing world.
The financial aid bill, proposed by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., would increase Pell Grants and allocate more funds to achieve other goals that congress has in higher education, such as regulation for student loan programs and more accessibility for low-income and first-generation students. This money is contingent on a very unusual “technical amendment,” section 494.
As it stands, section 494 states that universities participating in programs covered under the bill would need to inform students about their stance on copyright laws, offer alternatives to illegal downloading and “explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”
Not only would universities regulate the downloading of music under the bill, but they could also apply for grants to “develop, implement, operate, improve, and disseminate programs of prevention, education, and cost-effective technological solutions,” to combat the pirating of copyrighted material.
The current process of stopping college students from pirating music and other copyrighted material involves the Record Industry Association of America tracking IP addresses from schools’ servers. The RIAA approaches the school with the IP address and demands the student be given a letter, asking him or her to appear in court. The RIAA then sues the student for $750 per song or settles out of court for a “discounted” sum of approximately $4,000.
The RIAA now allows you to report pirating on it’s Web site. So you too can fight against the communist music thieves. We have entered into a new age of McCarthyism.
While all this may seem disheartening, the legal arm-twisting stops if the university refuses to act as a pawn to the RIAA. However, if the bill passes, it would make universities’ resistance to the RIAA practically impossible.
Schools such as Stanford, Yale and Penn State that have cosigned a letter of opposition would not be able to continue their opposition if they wanted to receive the federal financial aid awarded to their students.
In all fairness, Schlegel would not become the supreme overlord of Creighton’s Internet server, but section 494 should still be alarming to the Creighton community. It threatens not only the financial status of students, but administrational autonomy as well.
What is worse is that Congress has marketed the bill as a new progressive vision, and although it has many commendable aspects, section 494 stands as a prime example of the interest groups lobbying.
College students do not have a multi-million dollar firm to lobby Washington, yet we can do something. E-mail your district’s congressional representative, and tell him or her that section 494 must be removed from the College Opportunity and Affordability Act. Go to http://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml and tell them how you feel.