College students, listen up: Don't mess with Texas.
Texas Rep. John Carter, that is.
During a recent hearing of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and
Intellectual Property, the Republican congressman said jailing college
students who download copyrighted music would help stop piracy.
"What these kids don't realize is that every time they pull up music and
movies and make a copy, they are committing a felony under the United
States code," Carter said in an interview. "If you were to prosecute
someone and give them three years, I think this would act as a deterrent."
But some university officials say they have stepped up efforts to stop
piracy on their networks, and packing kids off to prison won't solve the
problem.
"I can't see turning millions of college students into criminals," said
Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University. "We'd have to
build a lot of new prisons to hold the lawbreakers engaged in piracy of
copyrighted materials."
Carter said making an example of a few college students could go a long way
toward bringing home the message that sharing and duplicating copyrighted
materials is wrong.
"Sometimes it takes the shock value of someone actually being punished,"
Carter said. "In this particular instance it might also send a message to
these kids that are operating on these networks that, 'Hey, I better stop.'"
Students would learn quickly that copying even one album is not worth the
potential punishment, he said.
"That information sent out to kids would be a real eye opener," he said. "I
think you would have a 50 percent falloff, at least, of these people (who
are pirating files).
"I'm not out to get the kids, I'm out to get their attention."
Carter, now in his first term in the House, served as a state district
judge for 20 years in Williamson County, known as the Lone Star State's
toughest county for criminals. If rampant file sharing was going on back
home, he said, people would likely be prosecuted.
"A felony conviction is a terrible thing to have on your record," Carter
said. Among other things, he said, a person would not be able to become an
officer in the U.S. military if convicted of a felony.
A statement from the Recording Industry Association of America seems to
back Carter's point of view.
"We support criminal prosecution of those who break the law and believe
that effective deterrence is a necessary part of combating piracy," an RIAA
spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail.
In October, the RIAA sent a letter to 2,300 colleges and universities
urging them to "impose effective remedies against violators." In response,
colleges have "dramatically" stepped up their responses to piracy problems,
according to Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel for the American Council on
Education.
"Although one would like to have a simple solution to the problem of misuse
of university bandwidth, the congressman's proposed solution does not go to
the core elements of the issue," Steinbach said of Carter's push to
prosecute college file traders. "There is no simple answer."
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