Tales of the Fedora

So the state is pushing for a law that will require colleges and universities to police their networks, blocking the transmission of copyrighted material such as movies and music from being shared on Peer to Peer file-sharing sites, lest they lose state funding. This is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.

First of all, I appreciate copyright. As a content creator I appreciate having the exclusive control of my work, and the ability to license that out. However, forcing a college or university to police their networks and block this traffic is not only technologically impossible, but completely stupid.

Let’s start with the technology. For a university to scan in real-time every packet of network traffic and identify it as a movie or song is impossible. Fundamentally impossible. The universities could block access to known file-sharing protocols and sites, but that cuts into the ability to use these services for non-infringing purposes. It’s like a baseball bat: perfectly legal to own, even for children — but it can also be used to bludgeon someone to death. Blocking the service is an option, but there are ways around it. Encrypted packets and the use of proxies, as well as the formation of new file-sharing services that aren’t yet blocked would make it an arms race.

And this doesn’t even address the fact that the copyright laws of the United States extend immediate copyright protections to any work that is immediately created. For a university to block all copyrighted work from traversing their network would mean that all emails sent across the network would be in violation of that policy. Any term paper emailed to a professor over the campus network, any coursework or class-related media would have to be blocked.

But that’s not really the point, is it? It’s the fact that the recording industry and the movie industry want special privileges — special protections, and making deals with states to pass laws to make network owners do their dirty work is easier than trying to prosecute the actual illegal copyright infringements.

However, let’s not forget that just a month or two ago, the Recording Industry Association of America admitted that the statistics of copyright infringement on college campuses were inflated by up to 40%. These were numbers they gave to Congress, to states, to colleges and universities to force them to curb this illicit activity. And it wasn’t even accurate.

From a newspaper article today: “Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America, said students might not see the harm in downloading, but he would be willing to take them tour of Music Row and show them the “For Sale” signs of music companies put out of business by changes in the industry.”

I’m sorry that your business model is broken. Just because your industry is changing doesn’t mean that you need a law to keep it afloat.

“There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.” – Robert A. Heinlein, “Life Line”

For reference, this is a prime example of the state of current copyright law.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.