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MPAA lawyer defends COAA anti-P2P provision

21 November 2007 13:50 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 2 comments

MPAA Washington general Counsel Fritz Attaway doesn't see anything wrong with a proposed law that would require universities to provide students with some kind of alternative to illegal P2P downloads in order to reduce piracy on college campuses. While university officials and consumer rights groups have been critical of the bill's wording, proponents say that if universities are unable or unwilling to implement such a plan there would be no repercussions under the law.

While participating in a panel on Monday organized by the Federal Communications Bar Association Attaway said "When the government is subsidizing universities...and it discovers that those universities are spending a lot of taxpayers' money to build digital networks that are being used primarily to allow college students to traffic in infringing content, I think it's perfectly legitimate for Congress to say, wait a minute, if we're giving you money, we don't want it to be used to help college kids infringe copyright."

Another panel member, Gigi Sohn, president of the digital-rights advocacy group Public Knowledge disagreed, asking "Why do you put things in bills that you don't want to enforce at some point?." She added "Even if I agree, and I don't, that it's toothless, I don't want that language in there for some other Congress to give it some teeth."

Her view is clearly shared by officials from many universities.

Source: CNet News

Permalink to this article

MPAA admits incorrectly estimating college piracy losses (23 January 2008)

Update: MPAA CEO talks out about American film ban in China (18 December 2007)

Limewire suit against music labels thrown out of US federal court (4 December 2007)

Internet study shows P2P traffic reigns supreme in Internet (29 November 2007)

RIAA may not have authority for university subpoenas (20 November 2007)

Universities not required to be copyright police in COAA (20 November 2007)

COAA bill puts Universities in front line against piracy (16 November 2007)

New bill proposed could punish file-sharing students (12 November 2007)

UK minister warns ISPs to curb piracy (24 October 2007)

19 new Universities receive RIAA letters (18 October 2007)

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Discuss this article!
kepners (Junior Member) 23 November 2007 7:37
they are trying something like this in the UK [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 19 December 2007 19:12
loop holes and even more loop holes this is a never ending story. [ + quote]