How much does it cost to monitor college students’ anti-American P2P activities? A whole lot, and that’s money colleges could be spending on, I don’t know, education.
This chart breaks down the cost of complying with, specifically, the new provisions of the Higher Education Act of 2008. That law, which the RIAA and MPAA were able to lobby their way into, requires colleges try to stem the spread of illegal P2P downloads on campus. The tools to police what students are up to exist—ipaudit is one that comes to mind—but is it really the business of colleges, realm of higher learning, to snoop on what their students are up to? Why not live and let live, punishing violations as they occur rather than spending all day playing cyber nanny?
One comment at Inside Higher Ed goes into the issue of government-sponsored censorship and prior restraint (in a sense), since the law applies to state schools as while as private schools. That’s an issue for another day, I think.
But it works! I got caught doing it. They served me a written reprimand and a copy of the policies. I therefore stopped, for now.
What we need is for ALL universities to simply say NO we will not comply with the law.
What are they going to do? shut down the entire secondary education system in this country?
Laws should exist only at the WILL of the PEOPLE. When there is a conflict between the law and the people the law should always LOSE except in cases of the Constitution since it is the HIGHEST law.