[FC-discuss] HR 4137 response

Fri Nov 30 12:20:42 JST 2007

I'm pasting it below, for peoples' reference. Please do consult your
chapters and sign on!

Free Culture Response to H.R. 4137 and H.R. 3746

This is a copy of a letter drafted collaboratively between the MIT,
Northeastern, Harvard, and NYU Free Culture
<http://freeculture.org/>chapters. It's also available as
.HTML<http://christopherbdnk.com/docs/freeculture_hr4137_hr3746_response.html>,
.PDF<http://www.christopherbdnk.com/docs/freeculture_hr4137_hr3746_response.pdf>,
and .ODT<http://www.christopherbdnk.com/docs/freeculture_hr4137_hr3746_response.odt>

Two bills currently pending in the House of Representatives are important
legislative efforts to help students manage the rising costs of higher
education in the U.S. Unfortunately, a few paragraphs among hundreds of
pages threaten to undermine the efficacy of these important bills. Embedded
among writing that will crucially renew and update the Higher Education Act
of 1965, [1<http://christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/#1>]
both The College Access and Opportunity Act of 2007 (H.R.3746)
[2<http://christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/#2>]
and The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (H.R.4137)
[3<http://christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/#3>]
include amendments that could unnecessarily hinder the use and efficiency of
academic computer networks. These amendments would increase the costs of
education by burdening universities with impossible technical challenges.
During the last few weeks, leaders representing the University System of
Maryland, Stanford University, Yale University, The Pennsylvania State
University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have issued statements
requesting review of these proposed amendments.
[4<http://christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/#4>]
As current university students, we too wish to voice our concern that a
valuable piece of legislation not be compromised by an unfortunate addition.

The proposed bills charge institutions with developing plans for identifying
the purpose and character of data transmissions across campus computer
networks. Unfortunately, this type of monitoring is technically
impracticable, unreasonably costly, and, most important, beyond the
educational missions of institutions of higher education. Among the data
that is copied across a university network, one will find works from the
public domain, large experimental datasets, works whose licenses permit
copying, and creative works protected by copyright used in research or the
classroom. Because computer programs have not been able to match the nuanced
manner in which a judge must apply the fair use balancing test to each
alleged instance of copyright infringement, technical deterrents to
infringement on academic networks unfairly burden lawful users by
compromising their privacy and greatly slowing network traffic.

Some universities have contracted with private digital media distribution
services to encourage lawful downloading of works protected by copyright.
Many have found these services inadequate for the needs of an academic
institution. In particular, a service that requires students to commit to a
particular computing platform unfairly impacts competition in the
marketplace and hinders students' ability to freely use and experiment with
various technological platforms and tools. If those services also implement
Digital Rights Management (DRM) to control how customers use the digital
media they purchase, it necessarily constrains the non-commercial and
educational uses of those creative works. Contracts with commercial media
distribution services therefore limit the ability of colleges and
universities to effectively serve their students.

Introducing any new technical initiative on a college or university campus
also incurs significant costs in the form of hardware, software, and
personnel. Even software provided free-of-cost will require maintenance and
technical support. To offset these expenditures, H.R. 4137, the College
Opportunity and Affordability Act would create new grant opportunities for
needy institutions, to be spent on filtering software, hiring and training
new staff, or initiating contracts with private media downloading services.
While we believe that federal funding would be better spent in support of
projects like the Internet Archive that explicitly encourage scholarship,
research, and a respect for the rights of creators,
[5<http://christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/#5>]
Congress should consider the long-term downstream impact of imposing
additional administrative burdens on institutions of higher education and
simultaneously biasing the market in favor of any particular supplier or
form of technology.

Higher education is a crucial step toward financial stability and mobility
for young people and vital to the maintenance of the United States'
competitive advantage in global trade and innovation. According to last
year's census data, more than a quarter of adults twenty-five years or older
had earned at least a Bachelor's degree and, on average, those graduates
earned almost twice as much as those with only a high school diploma.
[6<http://christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/#6>]
Yet as the value of a college degree has risen, so has the cost of tuition.
[7<http://christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/#7>]
Renewing and extending the provisions of the Higher Education Act are
essential to continued intellectual development and innovation in the United
States. We strongly urge our legislators to look closely and critically at
the two proposed bills to ensure that our institutions of higher learning
may continue to effectively perform their missions unhindered by harmful and
unnecessary regulations.

Sincerely,
Free Culture @ NYU
Northeastern Free Culture
Harvard Free Culture
MIT Free Culture
References

   - [1] The Higher Education Act of 1965,
   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_Act_of_1965
   - [2] H.R.3746 - College Access and Opportunity Act of 2007,
   opencongress.org/bill/110-h3746/show<http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h3746/show>
   - [3] H.R.4137 - College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007,
   opencongress.org/bill/110-h4137/show<http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h4137/show>
   - [4] Letter Opposing the Inclusion of the Entertainment Industry
   Proposal on Illegal File Sharing in the HEA, November 7, 2007,
   Ltr_Higher_Ed_Joint_Cmte_House_P2P_Provision_11-7-2007.pdf<http://www.aau.edu/education/Ltr_Higher_Ed_Joint_Cmte_House_P2P_Provision_11-7-2007.pdf>
   Letter from Jerrold M. Grochow, Vice President for Information
   Services & Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, October 31,
   2007,
   educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD5216.pdf<http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD5216.pdf>
   - [5] About the Internet Archive,
   archive.org/about/about.php <http://www.archive.org/about/about.php>
   - [6] Earnings Gap Highlighted by Census Bureau Data on Educational
   Attainment,
   census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/009749.html<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/009749.html>
   - [7] College Costs Rising at Double the Inflation Rate,
   nytimes.com/2007/10/22/education/21cnd-tuition.html<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/education/21cnd-tuition.html>
   - College Board's Trends in College Pricing 2007,
   trends_pricing_07.pdf<http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/trends/trends_pricing_07.pdf>

On Nov 29, 2007 9:47 PM, christopher budnick <christopherbdnk at gmail.com>
wrote:

> A bunch of us have worked [1] out a draft response [2] to the file sharing
> provision in HR 4137/HR 3746. We'd like to host it on freeculture.org and
> I'd like to post about it on the national weblog.
>
> Chapters that want to sign on to this should consult their members and
> then reply here (or as a comment in the blog entry, once it goes up) after
> deciding.
>
> For now it's being hosted on my own web space, but it should be easily
> moveable as the HTML/CSS is all easily viewable and the attached files are
> available for download.  All we really need is a clever name for the hosted
> HTML/PDF/ODT documents and we should be ready to blog on them and link to
> related groups as well as the media. If someone could let me know how I can
> access a user account for our WordPress install, that would be helpful, too.
>
>
> cheers
> christopher
>
> [1] http://wiki.freeculture.org/Notes_on_Response_to_HR_4137
> [2]
> http://www.christopherbdnk.com/blaag/2007/11/26/free-culture-response-to-hr-4137-and-hr-3746/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at freeculture.org
> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
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