Starting this month, colleges and universities that don’t do enough to combat the illegal sharing of digital movies or music over their computer networks put themselves at risk of losing federal funding.
A provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 [1] is making schools a reluctant ally in the entertainment industry’s campaign to stamp out unauthorized distribution of copyrighted music, movies, and TV shows.
Colleges and universities must put in place plans “to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material by users of the institution’s network” without hampering legitimate educational and research use, according to regulations that went into effect July 1.
That means goodbye to peer-to-peer file-sharing on a few campuses [2]—with exceptions for gamers or open-source software junkies—as well as gentle warnings on others and extensive education programs everywhere else.
Despite initial angst about invading students’ privacy and doing the entertainment industry’s dirty work [3], college and university officials are largely satisfied with regulations that call for steps many of them put in place years ago.
But whether the investment of time and money will make a dent in digital piracy is uncertain.
“If the university is going to prohibit underage drinking, I think it ought to prohibit anything on the internet that’s illegal, too,” said Alicia Richardson, an Illinois State University [4] junior who applauds her school’s restrictive policies on file-sharing. “I’m not going to mess with it. I know the consequences.”
Among other things, schools must educate their campus communities on the issue and offer legal alternatives to downloading “to the extent practicable.” Colleges and universities that don’t comply risk losing their eligibility for federal student aid…