Friday, September 28, 2007

Ars Technica Article on Wendy Seltzer Talk At Cornell : Universities Should Resist Copyright Bullies

Good article in Ars Technica on recent talk by Wendy Seltzer at Cornell:

Copyright lawyer tells universities to resist "copyright bullies"

By Nate Anderson | Published: September 28, 2007 - 12:55PM CT

Wendy Seltzer, the founder of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse and a former EFF staff attorney, gave a talk yesterday at Cornell (RealPlayer required) on "Protecting the University from Copyright Bullies." The bullies in question are the RIAA, and the issue is the recording industry's current campaign of both litigation and political pressure. Should universities assist the music industry in identifying the "pirates," or should they do everything in their power to resist?

The title of Seltzer's talk gives the game away. She believes that the mission of the university is to promote academic freedom, research, the testing of boundaries, and the learning of personal responsibility by students and researchers. An open network facilitates such things; one that is filtered and used to watch the activities of its users does not, in her view, produced the sorts of effects that universities want.

The campus has become the latest battleground in the war on file-sharing. The RIAA has taken its fight to the halls of Congress, where it recently failed to secure some legislation that would have required colleges and universities to implement content filtering solutions on their networks and would direct the government to produce a list of the top 25 infringing schools. "Why Congress should be getting into the business of naming names and pointing fingers is beyond me," Seltzer said.

Complete article


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