The RIAA found us again

After nearly a year with ZERO notifications from the RIAA, MPAA, or ESA I finally checked my work email to find 5 notifications of alleged copyright infringement.  I can’t be certain about why we haven’t received any in the last year but an old coworker had a theory.  We changed ISP’s which meant we got a new netblock.  Ever since we changed netblocks we never got a single copyright infringement allegation, until Friday.  Since they rediscovered us I wonder how many notifications I can expect the rest of the quarter.  I’m not sure how aggressive they have been this last year, but last time we received them I think we got slammed with about 20 at once; if my memory serves me correctly.  That was the same time we were handed settlement letters as well, so it was an interesting time to say the least.

College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007

A conversation about this started up again on the ResNet list. I’ve Gone through and picked out some articles that I think are interesting.

“An affected institution is only required to “make publicly available to their students and employees the policies and procedures related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials” and to “develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity” — and only to do so “to the extent practicable”.”

– Techdirt.com

Why not to pass the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007.

A Newsweek article I read (had a link but it’s now broken) gives more reasons not to give much credibility to the MPAA.

“In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry’s domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.”

“The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so.”

“But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a “human error” in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.”

I keep reading that the bill will require schools to offer legal means to download music/movies, notify all students of the policies and to start filtering traffic. If they don’t comply with the requirement the university would lose its financial aid. I’ve read in multiple places that financial aid would be pulled and then again that it wouldn’t. Every time I read another article I get more confused.

This hasn’t been passed yet though. From what I do understand the House and Senate passed different versions, so now they have to meld them both together and go through the process of passing it again through both the House and Senate.

This cnet article was posted on the 7th after the House passed their version of it.