Anti p2p university act advances in House
A possible threat to the scene is getting much more real shapes. The U.S. House of Representatives has taken a step toward approving a Hollywood-backed spending bill requiring universities to consider offering “alternatives” and “technology-based deterrents” to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. In the House Education and Labor Committee’s mammoth College Opportunity and Affordability Act (PDF) lies a tiny section, which dictates universities that participate in federal financial aid programs “shall” devise plans for “alternative” offerings to unlawful downloading, such as subscription-based services, or “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.” The committee unanimously approved the bill Thursday.
The provisions do ask colleges, to the extent practicable, to develop plans for offering students alternative legal ways to file share, as well as plans to prevent file sharing, but this would not be included in the financial aid program participation agreements colleges enter into with the U.S. Department of Education,” committee spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said. More detailed analysis of the act is available at CNet. Needless to say, universities are most common location of scene topsites and uni networks are very often used by scene groups because of their speed counting in hundreds of Mbits per second.