Monday, August 20, 2007
Uh... no
Not as far as I know:
Remember Welcome Week, when concerned resident assistants and staff members explained the process of fire drills... Actually, I don't remember this. Admittedly, it's been a long time for me, but what would that "process" entail? "When the fire alarm goes off, leave the building"?
...the perils of alcohol... What do you mean? AlcoholEdu takes care of that for us, now.
Anyway, we're talking about the effort to STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADING! With an educational video, I guess.
Another feature of the campaign is that students caught illegally downloading will lose their Internet privileges for a week, which for college students is a very lengthy, inconvenient period. "Caught illegally downloading." An interesting concept. Considering Residential Computing's privacy policy of not monitoring the content of internet usage, as well as the seeming impossibility of the university unilaterally determining whether a particular download (or, I would assume, upload) is "illegal," it seems like the policy might be a bit short of teeth. Or would be, except that their enforcement policy makes the case that, in fact, the only requirement is that "some guy tells the university that you're illegally downloading."
Regardless, the Daily Cal takes the position that "UC Berkeley's campaign to educate students on the consequences of Internet piracy is a responsible move." Why? Because:
Some individuals might be scared into staying away from DC++, but overall it's unlikely that the move will be as effective as officials wish it to be. Downloading music has become such a natural part of the average college student's lifestyle. Furthermore, just as with topics like alcohol, students don't usually pay much attention to university officials' advice. The new campaign will also be viewed as the school's attempt to placate the aggressive Recording Industry Association of America, which has been putting immense pressure on universities to take a more active role in Internet piracy. ... Oh, sorry, that's a big explanation for why the effort is sort of useless. Where's the "responsible move" aspect?
However, the university did the right thing in initiating the new education program. As residential computing manager Dedra Chamberlain said, "We don't want students to end up facing a lawsuit of $3,000 fine and saying 'Why didn't anyone warn me about this?'" Every student thinks "It won't happen to me," but so far at least 16 UC Berkeley students have been sent letters from the RIAA. Whether or not the campaign will actually produce a significant dent in illegal downloading on campus is doubtful. But, for UC Berkeley officials not to address the situation and at least inform students would have been irresponsible. Because the university will get "I told you so" rights. It would be irresponsible not to secure them.
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