Thoughts 21 Nov 2008 01:51 pm
Buying Politicians is Cheaper for the RIAA than Adapting to Technology
The Governor of Tennessee has proven beyond the slightest doubt that his political career and the wishes of his political contributers are more important than anything as trivial as education.
Wired Blog Network — Tennessee Adopts $9.5 Million University Piracy Measure Despite School Layoffs.
Just-signed legislation requires the 222,000-student system to spend an estimated $9.5 million for file sharing “monitoring software,” “monitoring hardware” and an additional “recurring cost of $1,575,000 for 21 staff positions and benefits (@75,000 each) to monitor network traffic” of its students.
Tennessee’s measure, approved Wednesday by Gov. Phil Bredesen, was the nation’s first in a bid to combat online file sharing within state-funded universities. The law, similar versions of which the Recording Industry Association of America wants throughout the United States, comes as the Tennessee public university system is increasing tuition, laying off teachers and leaving unfilled vacant instructor positions to battle a $43.7 million shortfall.
Is anyone else familiar with the term “sneaker net?” It may be an old school way of doing things, but I just bought a 16 gig flash drive and a DVD burner from NewEgg for a grand total of $63.97 including shipping. At that rate I can transfer a shit load of mp3s and even burn them to cd or dvd for my friends, cheaply, if I’m so inclined.
This new law also means they are going to have to install software to detect usb or even mp3 players on every computer on campus. –How are they going to differentiate between an mp3 player loaded with RIAA compliant songs and one loaded with pirated music?
The RIAA has succeeded not only in forcing someone else to act as their personal policeman but getting them to pay for it as well.
The recording industry has applied the knuckle-dragger’s brute force approach to enforcement in the delusional belief that it will actually have an impact.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says that even if the filtering technology “magically” worked, students are going to continue to swap music.
The dinosaurs aren’t extinct. They just moved into the recording and movie industries.