[Air-l] RIAA and freedom to copy

[Kevin Guidry]

   At the risk of self-promotion, I follow this issue on my blog
(http://mistakengoal.com) and in applied research I conduct with
fellow university housing and IT professionals
(http://resnetsymposium.org/workinggroups/research.htm).  In fact, I
have been drawn to this group as I have wondered just what my students
are doing on the residential computer network, why they're doing it,
and why it seems so important to them.
   I'll leave the legal speculations to the lawyers.  But on the
congressional front, it's pretty bad news for colleges and
universities.  First, the copyright holders have successfully
convinced American legislators that file-sharing is indeed copyright
violation and equivalent to theft.  Second, we in the academy have
done an exceptionally poor job of making our case and explaining our
apparent inaction.  I don't need to explain to this group of scholars
the many complicated legal, ethical, and technical issues involved but
we've barely tried to make those cases with our legislators (academic
freedom is derided as a poor excuse by some legislators).  Finally,
too many institutions have completely underestimated this issue and
have been too inactive.
   The last round of hearings in the House was particularly brutal and
demonstrative of their intense displeasure of how institutions have
handled this challenge.  Today, we discovered that 19 (or 20)
institutions are being heavily scrutinized by Congress and placed in
the uncomfortable position of answering a lengthy and biased
questionnaire or dodging the questions and incurring the wrath of
legislators (you can't hide in that small of a group).  I don't know
if legislative action will occur at the national level but it's clear
that there is significant and growing bipartisan willingness to take
action.  And some of the mumblings (change copyright law to modify
safe harbor, perhaps to require particular technological attempts to
prevent copyright infringement) should be of interest even to those
not in my small world.


Kevin