Colleges and universities are yet again being thrown into the Recording Industry Association of America’s fight against illegal file-sharing.
New federal rules published last Thursday instruct schools to develop written plans to combat illegal file-sharing, educate their network users about laws regarding copyright material and offer legal alternatives to downloading protected content. These restrictions will apply to every institution of higher education that receives federal funds.
For Duke, this will require no significant change to existing policy, as its current efforts meet these criteria.
At the moment, the University restricts Internet privileges of students who share more than five gigabytes of data a day, targeting illegal and overzealous distribution of files.
The Office of Information Technology already educates students and professors about University network rules governing file sharing for both academic and non-academic purposes.
And alternatives to illegal downloads are also made available, including iTunes U and membership to Ruckus, an online site that has a free library of diverse media content.
On the whole, it is difficult for universities to oppose efforts to enforce copyright laws. Intellectual property rights protect the work of professors and encourage new research, a fundamental component of the American higher education system. Furthermore, the new stipulations are undoubtedly better than the old tactics, where the RIAA targeted individual students and sued for large amounts of money.
But the rules’ scope and heavy-handedness are troubling.
University communities in particular are being singled out for copyright enforcement simply because they are an easy target. College students have access to high-speed, high-tech networks, and universities have more important issues to attend to than fighting off this type of regulation.
If the RIAA and similar organizations wanted to significantly curtail illegal downloads, however, they should target large commercial Internet Service Providers like Comcast and Verizon. ISPs have the power to attack the problem at its root, but their large lobbying budgets likely prevent the imposition of federal restrictions of this kind.
Additionally, it is concerning that this mandate is being enforced in a top-down manner that impinges on the freedom of institutions of higher education. Since practically every college and university accepts some form of federal funding, they must comply with the new regulation. To whatever extent possible, higher education should be free from federal involvement, and these rules set a dangerous precedent.
In the future, it is likely that the assessment and enforcement of this policy will stifle its efficacy. Determining if the written plan each university must submit is in compliance with the new rule will be a difficult process infused with subjective evaluation.
Over the past decade, stopping illegal file-sharing has devolved into an unsuccessful game of cat-and-mouse. As new technologies continue to rapidly develop, reactive efforts to combat copyright violations—epitomized by this new federal rule—will not work.
Instead, new proactive mechanisms are required to protect intellectual property in our increasingly digital age. This situation demands substantive and comprehensive reform from the federal government—not petty, piecemeal policies driven by the RIAA.