MPAA demands could cost colleges $500,000 a year

Stewart Meagher | 21 Oct 2008

P2P policing policies could leave some peniless

New mandaes recently added to the US Higher Education Act at the request of music and film industry bullies could end up costing American educational institutions a small fortune according to a report from Inside Higher Ed.

Just a few months after lawmakers rolled over under pressure from the music and film industry MPAA, some colleges are counting the cost of complying with the new laws and some, particulary those privately run without public funding, could suffer huge financial losses.

Kenneth C Green, who has been a vocal opponent of the entertainment industry's tactics against campus Internet providers, estimates that some large institutions could end up coughing up between £350,000 and $500,000 a year to comply with the new rulings.

Because of heavy-handed industry lobbying, colleges are now required "to consider the use of technology based deterrents" to stop people sharing files over P2P networks and it's this traffic monitoring and bandwidth shaping that costs the cash.

Colleges are also legally required to make sure all students understand the legal implications of downloading copyrighted material and the costs of awareness campaigns, rather than coming out of the coffers of the music and film industries as you might expect, come directly out of college funds.

Inside Higher Ed

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