[FC-discuss] Colleges should fight for free culture

[Gavin Baker]

Policing the Academy for Pirates
Educators are on the wrong side of the copyright wars
Crispin Sartwell
Reason
August 22, 2007
http://www.reason.com/contrib/show/714.html

Last month, the U.S. Senate passed legislation enlisting colleges 
in the effort to police peer-to-peer networks and file-sharing, in 
order to prevent "piracy" by students of music, movies, and for 
that matter, books.

One might wonder exactly why Senate Majority Leader Harry 
Reid???who introduced the amendment to the Higher Education 
Reauthorization Act, then tempered it when there was an outcry 
from college administrators???is concerned about campus file 
sharing, other than a general commitment to fight crime. A cynic 
might suggest the entertainment industry's considerable patronage 
of the Democratic Party.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Reid's measure 
"called on the Recording Industry Association of America and the 
Motion Picture Association of America to draft annual lists of the 
25 colleges receiving the most notices of copyright infringement. 
Those colleges would face a choice: Either use technological tools 
to block peer-to-peer file sharing, or risk forfeiting federal 
student aid.

In other words, colleges would be put under the supervision of the 
RIAA and MPAA. You need not wonder who lobbied for this 
extraordinary corporate authority over funding for American higher 
education. The punitive portions of the amendment were withdrawn 
after college officials reacted with outrage; what remained was a 
mere an exhortation for college administrators to act as 
entertainment police, and to explain to Congress and the 
entertainment industry what steps they're taking to combat 
piracy.

According to the Chronicle, the American Association of 
Universities learned of the new law just days before it was to be 
voted on. Were I the AAU, I'd be watching every piece of 
legislation to come through Congress from now on. It wouldn't be 
surprising ot see similar or identical measures slipped into 
various bills in the future.

Reid's amendment is a clear illustration of the effectiveness of 
lobbying. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think the trade groups 
actually wrote the text of the law. It vests in these groups a 
vast amount of money???taxpayer money???and, hence, power. The 
industry has already managed to move into a quasi-policing role, 
frequently working with federal, state, and local authorities on 
copyright and conspiracy investigations.

The bill also follows a continuing, troubling pattern of Congress 
deputizing and forcing corporations (money laundering laws, for 
example) and other private entities to monitor their customers for 
law-breaking, and to absorb the costs of compliance (the latest 
example is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act, which deputizes 
ISPs and private banks to prevent customers from patronizing 
gambling sites).

But this is a particularly egregious case because it enforces 
rules that are specifically inimical to education, and that run 
contrary the fundamental mission of a college or university???the 
sharing of information. The reasons colleges have given for not 
wanting this sort of regulation are that it would be costly and 
outside their purview or expertise, and that it would be 
burdensome and likely ineffective. Of course, they insist, to a 
man or woman they oppose piracy.

Of course. But perhaps this move by Reid will at least get college 
administrators reevaluating the whole notion of piracy, and about 
the role or function of copyright plays in the educational mission 
of their institutions. Offhand, it seems odd that an educational 
institution would oppose the disseminating or sharing 
information???that, and not football, dorm life, or counseling 
services, would seem to be the irreplaceable essence of education. 
Isn't the exchange of ideas and information the business of 
colleges and universities?

One would think that higher education administrators would prefer 
information be more liquid than coagulated and monopolized. Even 
films and music contain important information subject to pedagogy 
and academic research. The fact that copyrighted textbooks can 
cost $100 a pop represents is not just the unfortunate result of a 
property claim to information, for example, but is a concrete 
barrier to the actual flow of information. Google's idea of 
putting massive academic libraries online for free???a project 
from which they've retreated bit by bit because of pressure from 
publishers and other copyright-holders???would in theory be a huge 
boon to the business of education, the dream of a John Milton or a 
Samuel Johnson.

Rather than enforcing anti-sharing rules, colleges ought to be 
fighting the expansion of copyright law, and investing in and 
exploring filesharing software and sites. Much of the content that 
an institution of higher education provides is also already 
available on the Internet, and colleges would be better off 
getting into the business of sorting it, evaluating it, 
disseminating it, and re-presenting it???the sort of thing their 
expertise is good for.

That Harry Reid is doing the bidding of the entertainment industry 
isn't surprising. But the very essence of a university ought to 
place it in fierce opposition to demands that it police its 
students for the excessive sharing of information. On the 
contrary, colleges and universities ought to be working toward an 
environment in which information can be shared with more freedom.

--
Gavin Baker
http://freeculture.org/
gavin at freeculture.org