[tor-relays-universities] (FWD) Higher education act

[Wendy Seltzer]

Thanks Roger,

On 03/12/2013 06:12 PM, Roger Dingledine wrote:
> Hi Wendy,
> 
> I was in a meeting today wherein Tom Ristenpart explained to the
> University of Wisconsin network people why he needed to run an exit
> relay to support his research.
> 
> One of the concerns they raised was whether a Tor exit would endanger
> their agreements with the copyright mafia, per the new 2008 law where
> universities agree to enforce the copyright mafia's goals in exchange
> for federal funding.

Yes, the HEOA (Higher Education Opportunity Act). I've been concerned
for some time that the law indirectly reshapes Internet architecture to
be more friendly to copyright enforcement than communications. I don't
believe it requires higher education institutions to block research, but
many of them have interpreted it that way because it's easier.

> 
> Do you know any details here? My guess is it's another case of "they
> say you have to have a policy, but they don't say the policy has to do
> anything". That said, I noticed the word 'effectively' in it.

The law's "effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of
copyrighted material," doesn't mean "completely prevent, at the cost of
a great deal of non-infringing activity."
I'll reach out to Educause, who have done some work on HEOA policies.
> 
> I'm cc'ing some existing exit relay operators in case they've encountered
> this issue (or if they haven't but I have just worried them ;)

For my research and ongoing conversations in Washington, I'm very
interested to know about others who have heard this justification for
network-restriction.

--Wendy

> 
> --Roger
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Thomas Ristenpart <rist at cs.wisc.edu> -----
> 
> Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:07:05 -0500
> From: Thomas Ristenpart <rist at cs.wisc.edu>
> To: Roger Dingledine <arma at mit.edu>
> Subject: Higher education act
> 
> http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EPO0938.pdf
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 


-- 
Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.org +1 617.863.0613
Policy Counsel, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Visiting Fellow, Yale Law School Information Society Project
http://wendy.seltzer.org/
https://www.chillingeffects.org/
https://www.torproject.org/
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/