The House Education and Labor Committee unanimously approved a bill Thursday that would require universities to find alternatives to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing or face losing their federal financial aid if they don’t comply.
The bill says universities must “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.”
The specific penalties for not following the law are ambiguous, but university advocates have said it could mean universities would lose all of their federal financial aid. NU students received $35 million in aid for the 2007 fiscal year, said Ingrid Stafford, associate vice president for financial operations and treasury.
Federal financial aid, which includes Stafford loans, Pell grants and student work-study programs, is “very important” to recipients, said Mort Rahimi, NU’s chief technology officer.
“To me, it’s going to be very difficult for us to try to deny our students access to these federal dollars,” said Rahimi, who is also NU’s IT vice president.
These regulations are Section 494 of the larger “College Opportunity and Affordability Act,” which also proposes giving colleges incentives for lowering tuition and streamlines financial aid application processes.
The bill does not explicitly require universities to purchase a legal music subscription service such as Napster, or pay for songs on iTunes, but purchasing such a service would be the only viable option to fulfill the bill’s requirements, Rahimi said.
“The bill says to find an alternative,” he said. “An alternative to someone who’s taking something for free is for the university to give it for free.”
The bill probably wouldn’t apply to all students, Rahimi said.
“The majority of our students are already subscribing to the various services,” he said. “The issue is that some don’t, and why should some students who really don’t care about music pay for it?”
If NU is forced to purchase a service, then it will search for the best prices and options, Rahimi said. Student committees could also provide input, he said. Subscription fees for a service, such as Napster, which charges $9.99 per month for its basic service, could be added to each student’s tuition, he said.
Rahimi said he thought the bill would ultimately pass because “the music and film industry very clearly dictate the Congress’ agenda on this.”
Weinberg sophomore Nitasha Gupta said the cost should not be factored into tuition “even if it’s only 20 bucks, because not everyone downloads music.”
“(NU) should make it optional and those students who use it should pay directly to the university,” Gupta said.
Jenna Hartnett said it would depend on the cost. The Weinberg junior said she doesn’t download music often, but said she thought the most she would want to pay for such a service is $50 a year.
The bill comes after the Recording Industry Association of America cracked down on illegal file sharing at universities this summer. The RIAA recently sent pre-litigation letters to 16 NU students who allegedly shared music illegally, giving them the option of paying a fine rather than facing possible legal consequences.
Rahimi said he thought the current bill is ironic because Congress is concerned about high tuition rates. He has “real serious difficulty” with Congress’ attempt at intervention in higher education, he said.
NU President Henry Bienen said he thought Congress does have “a role to play in regulation across a range of issues.”
But he said his “big concern” with Congress is that “it often imposes unfunded mandates and tells you to do something and doesn’t worry about the cost or where you get the money to do it.”
Jan Carmikle, the intellectual property officer at the Office of Research at the University of California, Davis, said the bill has caused “abject horror” at colleges nationwide.
“The idea that so many low-income and otherwise deserving students can lose federal aid to address these problems – it just doesn’t connect,” she said.
Since UC Davis is a public university, Carmikle said she doubts the California taxpayers will want to pay for students’ free music.
“We barely have the money for research, financial aid, housing,” Carmikle said. “It’s not going to go to free music before anything else.”
Carmikle said Ruckus, a digital entertainment service for colleges and universities, approached UC Davis to join its free service. Ruckus uses advertising to fund its free downloading service, which currently offers more than 3 million songs.
“(Ruckus) is going to the government and saying ‘Look at us, we’re free,'” she said.
But Carmikle said UC Davis was not interested because the service lacked both the content and the format to work efficiently and meet the university’s needs.
Still, the service has subscribers at more than 1,000 schools nationwide and exclusive partnerships with 169 affiliated schools including Brown, Duke and Princeton universities.
If the bill does pass, Rahimi said NU will comply.
“We’ll follow the laws of the land, and whatever we’ll have to do we’ll do,” he said.
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