Colleges forced to protect copyrights?

According to a news.com article, a bill introduced to the House last Friday by Democrats would put responsibility on college’s to monitor their students traffic, with some very serious consequences if they choose not to do so.

From the article:

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students–even ones who don’t own a computer–would lose federal financial aid.

First of all, I’d like to applaud the Democrats for threatening their base. Seriously, what the hell are you guys thinking? For a party who insists that they want to separate government interests from corporate interests, this is a perfect example of protecting corporate interests by implementing advertising supported venues for music distribution.

My main beef with all of this is that the people who are making the laws do not know ANYTHING about the technologies they are attempting to put a stop to. They don’t seem to realize that the people they are threatening (”Stop the piracy or we’ll take away your loans! Seriously this time guys!”) are some of the only people who continue to be innovative and help maintain the basic infrastructure that politicians rely on to disseminate their BS and propaganda.

I rarely download music anymore and I’m not currently in college, but these kinds of policies and bills are not what is going to solve the problems that are currently being experienced by the media companies in this country. It has been said a thousand times before, but they need to embrace this technology, not try to dunk it, and certainly they shouldn’t attempt to stop it by threatening the people that put money into their pockets and keep some of these politicians in office.