Educators or Police Officers?

For years, campuses around the country have tried to stop, or at least prohibit, their students from illegally sharing files with other students and downloading copyrighted music on campus. Schools have had to not only designate manpower to fight this ongoing battle, but have had to use their own funds in order to stop it as well. And now the rest of us get a glimpse into what these institutions are having to pay...

This month, a study was released called the Campus Computing Project that shows just how much schools are averaging for supporting the strict policies that Congress has set up for them to meet. This pas August, Congress tightened the enforcement requirements in the Higher Education Act, which the report says will further increase the amount of money institutions have pay for keeping their students out of online trouble. The report says the average public campus spends over $20,000 a year on licensing fees for software that curbs illegal file sharing and other peer-to-peer (P2P) services; while private institutions are averaging around $100,000 per year.

Some feel that the amount of time, energy and expense these schools pay to fight copyright infringements is a waste of educational resources and turn our institutions into law enforcers rather than educators. Others believe that schools have a real responsibility to keep their students from breaking copyright laws while they reside on the school's property.

 What do you think?