Buried in the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (H.R. 4137), which passed 354 - 58 in the house last week, are some chilling and expensive provisions requiring Universities to monitor the file sharing conducted by students on campus networks, or risk loosing accreditation.

Section 488 of the bill requires institutions that receive Federal student aid funds to adopt policies and sanctions related to copyright infringement, including:

• an annual statement warning students that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material (file sharing) may subject the students to civil and criminal liabilities;
• a summary of the penalties for violation of Federal copyright laws;
• a description of the institution’s policies for punishing student file sharing; and
• a description of the institution’s efforts to prevent and detect file sharing.

Section 494 of the bill entitled “CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION” requires each Federal student aid receiving institution to–

• make available to their students information related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials and
• develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.

The White House released a critical statement of the bill on February 6, 2008, mainly opposing racial quotas. The new level of (expensive) oversight that universities would need to conduct in order to continue receiving Federal student aid funds received no mention.

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On October 31, 2007, a number of progressive policy groups endorsed a set of Fair Use Principles for User Generated Video Content authored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In the world of Copyright and Fair Use, each step forward by content owners is typically followed by a step forward by fair use advocates seeking to secure content for public use. (Think: Spy vs. Spy.) The principles advocated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (and other policy groups, like Public Knowledge) would interfere with YouTube’s recent attempts to filter out copyright-protected content from its online service.

Do these principles serve the public interest or do they go too far? Should content owners prove others are infringing instead of having persons posting content establish they have the right to do so (the Wikipedia model)? Should we adopt a model that burdens owners or users?

YouTube Model. Owners must spend time working with YouTube to ensure that thier content has been provided to YouTube so that it can filter out content. Otherwise, the owner must police YouTube and provide DMCA Takedown Notices in order to remove the content. Down side: some fair use materials will be screened out.

Wikipedia Model. Users must establish what right they have to upload material, whether they are the owner, licensee, or that material is public domain. Down Side: uploading material is more difficult under the Wikipedia Model.

The Fair Use Principles would increase the burden on YouTube (or its users), but would have little impact on Wikipedia, which removes any content not verified in a short period of time, while also providing a DMCA policy.

Policy groups (and YouTube) might do well to take a look at Wikipedia, which has a model that balances the public interest with the rights of authors and artists.

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