Proposed U.S. House Bill 4137

Proposed U.S. House Bill 4137, entitled "College Opportunity & Affordability Act of 2007," might require universities to filter their network for copyrighted materials. Failture to comply could result in loss of federal funding for students, in addition to noticable harm to learning potential.

The proposed U.S. house bill “seems to be an impossibility given Fair Use, because most of what moves across university computers is ‘no brainer’ Fair Use of media. I can use anybody’s media to teach. That’s been Fair Use forever. I use people’s copyrighted material in my teaching all the time. What a nightmare that would be for the university.” - Jeff Grabill

“That’s horrible. It’s saying that schools have to provide an alternative to illegal downloading. It’s really bad because, it’s basically like the schools are going to have to support the entertainment industry by forcing students to pay money, and it just doesn’t make any sense." - Martine Rife

"It could have serious chilling effects on the university environment. A filter doesn’t know the difference between a file that you’re using for your copyright class and a clip of a movie that may not have a fair use license. I don’t think someone’s going to be able to develop the [artificial intelligence] of a judge." - Elizabeth Stark

The Forward to MSU's Acceptable Use Policy reads: "Access to modern information technology is essential to the pursuit and achievement of excellence across the MSU mission of instruction, research, and service outreach. The privilege of use of computing systems and software, as well as internal and external data networks, is important to all members of the University community. The preservation of that privilege for the full community requires that each individual faculty member, staff member, and student comply with institutional and external standards for appropriate use."

Naturally, problems will arise if "institutional and external standards" clash with common sense in a changing modern world -- a world in which people are realizing their true power with the help of technology.

(Source: http://www.msu.edu/au/)

Jeff Grabill, co-director of MSU's Writing in Digital Environments (WIDE) Department