Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

Yesterday, the Department of Education hosted the fifth of its six regional hearings on the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA). Held in the Department's Washington, DC K street offices, the meeting allowed panelists from the Department to hear feedback and collect testimony from the public regarding how the HEOA's rules should be drafted. People were also invited to submit correspondence electronically if they could not attend.

On Wednesday, the room was packed with more than 70 people representing various organizations. People spoke about an array of issues, including peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), student aid, campus security, learning disabled programs, and accreditation rules. Because EDUCAUSE is taking the lead on the P2P issue, I'll confine my observations to that subject here.

EDUCAUSE has joined other organizations in signing a letter from the American Council on Education to U.S. congressional leaders about requirements in the House and Senate joint committee report of the final version of the Higher Education Act (HEA) Reauthorization. The letter applauds certain provisions of the HEA but cites the drawback of “an extraordinary number of new reporting and regulatory federal requirements,” including those addressing peer-to-peer file sharing.

In this 50 minute podcast we feature a keynote speech by Mark Luker, Vice President of EDUCAUSE. The speech was delivered at the EDUCAUSE 2008 Southwest Regional Conference in Houston, Texas, and is entitled, "Washington Update: We're from the Government, and We're Here to Help You!"

In this EDUCAUSE Live! podcast, join host, Steve Worona, for the topic "Swiftboating Higher Education on P2P: Why Higher Education Is Not the Real Problem, and Technology Is Not the Real Solution".

His guest is Kenneth C. "Casey" Green, Founding Director of The Campus Computing Project, the largest continuing study of the role of information technology in American colleges and universities.

ABC is reporting that the MPAA have deployed sniffer dogs trained to detect CDs and DVDs into Stanstead Airport.

For the time being, Lucky and Flo are working at a FedEx shipping center at Stansted Airport where they are sniffing packages that are shipped around the world. Trainers say the dogs have been notifying customs agents of packages with discs in them. The packages have been opened but so far no pirated movies have been found.

"We're encouraged by this. It's a new tool against piracy but we welcome it and hope others will adopt such practices [...]"

Thank goodness London airports aren't swamped with other security concerns an have the time and energy to address this issue.