The Clinton-era Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has turned the Information Technology (I.T.) departments of America’s colleges and universities into vigilante lynch mobs working for Hollywood.
Criminalizing certain behaviors and technologies, the DMCA was touted as a way to protect the rights of poor, struggling song and screenplay writers by cracking down on Internet music and movie piracy. Millions of people around the world were (and, still are) copying their music CDs and movie DVDs to their computers and uploading the files to the Internet.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) blamed (and, still blame) “illegal file sharing” on the Internet for sagging CD and DVD sales, ignoring overseas factories cranking out millions of bootleg music and movie discs every day. Also ignored were the facts that computers and the Internet are here to stay, and pre-1990s business models are no longer valid. Yet, not to be confused by the facts, the RIAA and MPAA had their file-sharing scapegoat to parade before a technologically ignorant Congress (“The best Congress that money can buy,” said Will Rogers). DMCA passed.
The present-day situation is a dismal example of government-sanctioned thuggery. Emboldened by the insanely flawed DMCA, the entertainment industry has embarked on a “crackdown” campaign that could well be described as one of blackmail, extortion and racketeering. Instead of seriously attacking the root causes of music and movie piracy, and the organized crime cartels that benefit from it, the RIAA and MPAA are going after those least able to defend themselves: college students.
Bypassing the entire court system, yet using the threat of extremely expensive lawsuits, the entertainment industry has been sending “pre-litigation settlement letters” to colleges and universities, to be forwarded to potentially misbehaving students. In exchange for legal immunity, schools agree to search their networks for file-sharing activity and rat out students that may be downloading “illegal” songs or movies. By using taxpayer-funded university I.T. departments to do the dirty detective work for them, the RIAA and MPAA have conned schools into acting as their unpaid hitmen.
Take, for example, the University of Oklahoma.
One of OU’s Information Technology Security Policies, citing “DMCA,” reads, in part: “Persons and/or devices found to be violating the copyright of any digital material shall have their network access restricted according to the Sanctions Standard until evidence of compliance has been obtained by Information Technology. The removal of the copyrighted material, along with software enabling the violation of digital copyrights must be verified.” The telling phrase, found at the end of this onerous document, reads, “DMCA (RIAA) Incident Response.”
Nothing in this policy has anything to do with “information security.” I could spend a long time picking apart this poorly worded document, but for this column I’ll only nitpick one item. “The removal of… software enabling the violation of digital copyrights” has to include Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. Will students be required to erase Windows from their computers before they are found to be in “compliance?”
Now, at this point you may be thinking, “Dave, this is all very interesting, but you used the word ‘hypocrisy’ in the title of this column. Where’s the ‘hypocrisy?’”
I had the opportunity last week to work for a certain man who has an office on OU’s campus. A member of OU’s I.T. department had previously “done some things” to his computer, but, still, there were problems. A brief survey of the situation revealed that, holy frijoles, he had no antivirus software installed, and OU’s I.T. “expert” had disabled the Windows firewall, leaving this man with absolutely no Internet “information security” at all! I was shocked. Any so-called “I.T. guy” that leaves a client in such an insecure state should be fired.
And that, ma chère, is where the hypocrisy lies. Sure, in the name of “information security,” rat out OU students downloading Toby Keith songs to entertainment industry goons, but leave OU professors completely insecure on the Internet. Sure, that makes sense.