march08c.indd


Andy Bridges W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e  

New legislation in House threatens 
student privacy on campus 
In early February, the U.S. House of Repre­
sentatives passed the College Opportunity 
and Affordability Act (H.R. 4137), a bill 
whose aim is to lower tuition costs and 
ease the student aid application process, but 
which includes troubling language concern­
ing privacy and intellectual freedom. 

Section 488 of the bill would now require 
colleges and universities to submit: 

1) an annual disclosure that explicitly 
informs students that unauthorized distri­
bution of copyrighted material, including 
unauthorized peer­to­peer fi le sharing, may 
subject the students to civil and criminal 
liabilities; 

2) a summary of the penalties for viola­
tion of federal copyright laws; 

3) a description of the institution’s poli­
cies with respect to unauthorized peer­to­
peer file sharing, including disciplinary 
actions that are taken against students who 
engage in unauthorized distribution of 
copyrighted materials using the institution’s 
information technology system; and 

4) a description of actions that the institu­
tion takes to prevent and detect unauthor­
ized distribution of copyrighted material 
on the institution’s information technology 
system. 

Simply put, schools would now have 
to publicize their policies on fi le­sharing, 
make an annual report on those policies 
to the Department of Education, and make 
plain the steps they have taken to “detect” 
fi le­sharing activities. 

Several groups have taken issue with this 
legislation, claiming that it forces schools to 
essentially spy on their students. 

“Requiring universities to spy on their 
students is an insult to the transparency 
and openness that is the cornerstone of the 

Andy Bridges is communications director at ALA’s 
Washington Offi  ce, e-mail: abridges@alawash.org 

academic community,” added Steve Worona, 
policy director for Educause, a group that 
represents college and university network 
operators. “Universities are educators, not 
corporate enforcement tools,” he said. 

Earlier in the year, the Motion Picture As­
sociation of America (MPAA)  stated that the 
piracy of college students accounted for as 
much as 44 percent of the movie industry’s 
annual losses. Later, though, at an anti­piracy 
campaign on Capitol Hill, the MPAA lowered 
the number to 15 percent, and even that 
number has been questioned. 

Related legislation from 2007 
In 2007, several hearings regarding piracy 
and filtering technology, copyright educa­
tion, and the role of higher education in 
policing institutional networks were held. 
Even though data indicates that the bulk 
of piracy occurs oversees, Congress contin­
ued to focus on the individual consumer of 
protected content with a special scrutiny of 
college students. 

The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing 
U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act of 
2007 stalled in the House Judiciary Commit­
tee. This bill would amend the Digital Millen­
nium Copyright Act by codifying the Library 
of Congress exceptions for circumvention of 
technological measures identified in Section 
1201 rulemakings and requiring rights hold­
ers to label works that contain technological 
controls. Rights holders vehemently opposed 
versions of this bill, introduced in each of 
the last three Congressional sessions by Rep. 
Rick Boucher. 

A number of bills aimed at boosting 
copyright enforcement were introduced in 
both the House and the Senate during this 
session. The Prioritizing Resources and Or­
ganization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) 
Act of 2007, about which ALA signed on to a 
letter of opposition, seemed to lose traction. 
ALA argued that the PRO IP bill would likely 
chill innovation and fair use. 

172C&RL News March 2008

mailto:abridges@alawash.org