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House college aid bill includes P2P filtering measure - February 8, 2008

The MPAA's embarrassing admission last month that it has been grossly overstating the impact of unlicensed peer-to-peer traffic on college and university campuses does not appear to have hurt its lobbying position on Capitol Hill. On Thursday, the House overwhelming passed the Higher Education Act (HR 4137) with a provision requiring school administrators to develop plans to filter P2P traffic on campus networks. Although the bill does not mandate filtering--at least not yet--schools will be required to invest resources to "explore technology-based deterrents" to file-swapping. Schools are also required to develop plans to offer legal alternatives to unlicensed downloads.

Left unclear in the bill--perhaps intentionally--is whether colleges and universities could face penalties in the form of reduced federal aid for failing to come up with the required plans. The bill itself makes no explicit mention of penalties. However, an amendment offered by Rep. Steven Cohen (D-TN) stipulating that "nothing in the Higher Education Act (HEA) be construed to deny or reduce funding...to any higher education institution based on that institution’s failure to comply with the HEA’s new requirements concerning digital theft," was quietly withdrawn before the vote.

Perhaps the lack of explicit penalties accounts for the MPAA's measured praise for the bill. "While this legislative provision is modest in what it asks of universities, it is a significant step toward educating students and deterring illegal downloads and file-sharing on college campuses," MPAA CEO Dan Glickman said in a statement Thursday. "We are committed to working with the university community to find solutions that will help curb piracy on campus networks and raise awareness of legal alternatives to piracy.”
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