Tennessee and RIAA allies with Campus Downloading Bill

For several years now, the Recording Industry of America has lobbied public and private universities to decrease music pirating by pressuring their student bodies and closely monitoring their computer networks. Shoot, back in January, the RIAA sent 407 pre-litigation letters to 18 universities that it deemed the most prone to music theft. Much of the RIAA’s focus on colleges comes from a 2007 Student Monitor survey. The college research group found that more than half of college students download copyrighted material.

However, in a major victory for the RIAA, Tennessee became the first state to officially side with the RIAA. Tennessee’s new law, signed into effect on Nov. 12, requires Tennessee universities adopt policies and guidelines to monitor and control music theft over their computer networks. In a release, the RIAA said that universities will need to “exercise appropriate means” to monitor their students pirating activities and “enforce a computer network usage policy to effectively limit the number of unauthorized transmissions of copyrighted works.”

However, with new policies come budgets. According to the budget breakdown for Tennessee’s latest law, the state will spend $9.5 million dollars in setup costs to effectively control music pirating over university computer networks. After the initial costs, Tennessee would spend about $1.6 million per year to continue monitoring music theft over its networks. Most of the ongoing costs will cover the salaries of 21 staff.

So now taxpayers will be footing the bill for the RIAA’s pirating law even while the University of Tennessee finds itself in the midst of budget cuts. After a $22 million budget cut this summer, the university found out that it needs to slash another $17 million this fall as tax revenue declines. Nevertheless, Tennessean taxpayers will dole out funds to monitor the pirating habits of college students instead of actually putting the money toward education.

by Ben Benson