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Utterly despicable.

New federal legislation says universities must agree to provide not just deterrents but also “alternatives” to peer-to-peer piracy, such as paying monthly subscription fees to the music industry for their students, on penalty of losing all financial aid for their students…

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) applauded the proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page spending and financial aid bill. “We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing,” said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students–even ones who don’t own a computer–would lose federal financial aid.

Because nothing, not even the education of the next generations, is as important as the entertainment industry’s profits.

If you live in the districts of Rep. George Miller (D) of California or Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D) of Texas, please call and remind them it is not the responsibility of schools to protect the entertainment industry’s interests and denying a college education to lower-income students to make the entertainment industry happy is reprehensible.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Digital Restrictions Management, education, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.