Two Democrat representatives—George Miller (California) and Ruben Hinojosa (Texas)—have introduced a bill to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965. The proposed legislation, called the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, would require universities to not just deter student file-sharing on campus, but institute alternatives to file-sharing, such as monthly subscription fees to the death-throes-convulsing US entertainment cartel. Universities that fail to provide such deterrents and alternatives could lose all financial aid for their students; even students that don’t own computers.
A consortium of universities—the chancellor of the University of Maryland, the presidents of Penn State and Stanford, and the general counsel of Yale—sent a letter to Congress stating that while the higher education community recognizes the seriousness of the problem and continues to be committed to reaching a workable solution, “such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid—including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy.”
Several universities have already begun filtering file transfers on their networks according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Miller and Hinojosa’s legislation appears to be a revival of Senator Harry Reid‘s (D-Nevada) attempt at authoring a similar law last summer. Reid’s proposal called for technical deterrents to file-sharing. That attempt failed, resulting in a requirement that schools advise students of the legal consequences of copyright infringement.
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