Bill Seeks Crack Down On College File-Sharing

The College Opportunity and Affordability Act includes provisions to crack down on students downloading music and movies over the school's network.

The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 not only tries to make college more affordable and loan agencies more transparent it also adds penalties for noncompliance if colleges don't set stricter controls over P2P file sharing.

Many colleges already have policies in place, and try their best to prevent students from illegal file sharing however as well all know that is next to impossible. Once a barrier is set into place it only take a determined mind a few tools and time to find away around it.

Mark A. Luker, vice president of Educause, a nonprofit that works with colleges to promote the intelligent use of technology has said technologies—such as those that Congress, the RIAA, and the MPAA are promoting—just aren't effective yet.

"Monitoring technology touted by the MPAA and RIAA is still in a primitive stage," Luker says, "and the proposed law asks every college to implement these expensive monitoring technologies that simply aren't developed enough to handle the task. These applications often miss music or movie downloads, or they block many transfers that are legal for students to download."