MPAA Asks College Deans to Crack Down on Movie Piracy

An open letter addressed to college presidents, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) asks college presidents to adopt their guidelines to curbing illegal file sharing on campus networks. Unlike earlier letters sent by the MPAA threatening legal action, the letter offers colleges advice for creating new user policies.
According to the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, colleges are required to develop written plans for how to deal with students who download movies and television shows illegally. However this law, which took effect last July, is quite flexible and may not lead to anti-piracy policies that are as aggressive as the MPAA would like. “Online theft is a job killer that also reduces the number of opportunities for graduates of your institution to make a living in the creative sectors,” the letter reminds universities.
The letter suggests that schools direct students to leal sites like Hulu and TV.com, block students from accessing rouge file-sharing sites and offer educational seminars for network users. “That looks like a positive turn,” says Peter DeCherney, a copyright expert and assistant professor of cinema studies and English at the University of Pennsylvania, “and probably more effective than trying to intimidate students and universities.”
How do you think colleges should deal with illegal downloading?
Via Inside Higher Ed.
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