College Officials’ Outrage Causes Senator to Withdraw

Proposed File-Sharing Measures

July 24, 2007

 Nearly as quickly as it was announced, the proposed amendment that would have forced schools to implement new technology to block file-sharing has already been withdrawn as a possible addition to the Higher Education Act reauthorization. 

Last week Senator Harry Reid of Nevada put forth the legislative language to propose an amendment which would have called for the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America to submit a list of the top twenty-five colleges and universities that have received the most notices for illegal file-sharing. Those schools then would have been legally bound to install technology within their networks to thwart their students’ file-sharing activity. 

However, by Monday Reid had withdrawn the amendment’s proposal, due to quickly growing outrage from college officials—both from the targeted schools and from non-targeted ones, fearing their campuses may be the next forced to make the expensive and not necessarily effective technological changes. 

Source: Carnevale, Dan and Brock Read. “Facing Pressure From Colleges, Senate Majority Leader Withdraws Original Amendment on File Sharing.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, online. www.chronicle.com. Posted: July 24, 2007.