Music Industry to Target College Students and Universities

Scott Laue

This post is a response to an article that can be found: HERE

Greetings,

I came across the aforementioned article and wanted to say a few words about the state of things. At Southwestern (Adventist University), the ability to torrent has already been disabled on the wireless network, no matter whether or not it’s actually legal (There are legal torrents). That in itself is an entirely separate matter and at one point I went over that in a previous article on this blog: Piracy and Internet Censorship

The issue I wanted to talk about was the following paragraph:

“In July this year, the US put into effect a new requirement for colleges and universities to stop illicit file-sharing on their networks. This legislation puts defiant schools at risk of losing federal funding if they don’t do enough to stop illicit file-sharers on their campus.”

There are some issues I take with this. Who does it say controls the government if the entertainment industry can control university funding? Who decides whether what a university has done is enough? Why will this help?

1: Those with money control the government. I know we’d, myself included, like to believe that our democracy is a true representation of the will of the people, but let’s be honest. Lobbyists for many industries pay for senators and congressmen that will vote in their favor. Oil, Music, Logging, Automotive, and many others. They’ve recently had to limit the amount of gifts lobbyists can give to politicians yet again. It’s depressing.

2: My guess is that if this legislation doesn’t have the desired results, then the government will start restricting everyone who has not implemented draconian P2P reforms, but in the end that leads to #3.

3: Yes, it probably will stop piracy a bit, but the truth is that it will only momentarily delay the fall of label companies. Artists are getting more money that they ever have (In-depth Research), so there goes the excuse that loss of record sales is causing music artists to suffer. Many universities and colleges will probably implement reforms, but I worry about what precedent this sets.

I will not say piracy is correct, but the methods that are being used to deal with it are more harmful to America than piracy itself. I always worry when I see websites going to China to escape US censorship. Ironic, but sad.

A few thoughts until some other time.

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