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"The last few weeks haven\u2019t been kind to the modern pirates of the world. We\u2019ve seen Swedish authorities give several individuals associated with The Pirate Bay a public grilling [TorrentFreak]. (Though none of the accused have been pinned with any real concrete legal infractions that we know of.) We\u2019ve seen the RIAA, despite taking a virtual beating by a group of rogue hackers in January, come out ever stronger against peer-to-peer Internet traffic. As was reported yesterday, the president of the association, Cary Sherman, stated at a recent technology conference held in the US Capital his conviction for the effectiveness of digital filters.\nAnd now we bear witness to the US House of Representatives offering overwhelming approval - voting 354-58 - for a \u201Chigher-education funding bill that includes controversial new anti-piracy obligations for universities.\u201D\nReported yesterday by CNET\u2019s Anne Broache in the company\u2019s News Blog, the approved bill includes an \u201Centertainment industry-backed provision\u201D in the 800-page College Opportunity and Affordability Act which essentially mandates any collegiate institutions that take part in federal financial aid programs to \u201Cdevise plans for \u2018alternative\u2019 offerings to unlawful downloading.\u201D\nBoth the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the AFM (American Federation of Musicians), which represent a great number of copyright owners, have offered agreeable responses to the bill\u2019s approval by the House. The Association of American Universities, of course, has offered the precise opposite.\nA motion made last year by a selection of university lobbyists to remove the proposal - which would allow regulators to stifle federal funding if universities\u2019 compliance to the bill was deemed inadequate or substandard - proved successful. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was pushed to cut the plan, known legislatively as , from the bill. Yet it is clear that the mood, as well as the financial influence of the media lobby, has since further solidified around the idea that, because the issue of piracy has been exacerbated considerably in the last number of months, it has now been made all but legally justifiable to penalize American colleges and universities for exercising a neutral bias as to the ways in which their IT frameworks are utilized. Which is, if I may say so myself, a very unfortunately development, and quite possibly a wholly unproductive when all is said and done.\nOf course, that brings up a very important particularity that should be made clearly evident in academic newsletters nationwide: the bill has yet to be come law.\nIndeed. Despite the fact that yesterday\u2019s House approval of H.R. 4137 shows that the cards have been stacked against the Association of American Universities, the whole of Congress, as well as the Executive branch, have not enacted the bill. It still must endure more legislative processing. Thus, if various members of the college lobby are intent on beating back the threat of compromised federal financial aid programs in the face of a heightened piracy war, now is the time for them to pay crucial visits to influential Representatives to try to reverse the course of the bill (as it stands in its current form)."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/02/08/us-house-approves-anti-piracy-legislation/>