EDUCAUSE Live! December 7, 2007 1:00 p.m. ET (12:00 p.m. CT, 11:00 a.m. MT, 10:00 a.m. PT); runs one hour

Swiftboating Higher Education on P2P: Why Higher Education Is Not the Real Problem, and Technology Is Not the Real Solution

Special Guest

Kenneth C. "Casey" Green
Founding Director
The Campus Computing Project

Kenneth C. Green is the founding director of The Campus Computing Project, the largest continuing study of the role of information technology in U.S. colleges and universities. The project is widely cited by both campus officials and corporate executives as the definitive source for information about IT issues affecting U.S. higher education. The project is also the model for affiliated research programs under way in several nations including Brazil and Canada.

A visiting scholar at the Claremont Graduate University, Green is the author, coauthor, or editor of a dozen books and published research reports and over three dozen articles that have appeared in academic journals and professional publications. His work has been cited by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and other print and broadcast media. Green’s signature Digital Tweed column was published in the magazines Campus Technology and Converge.

In October 2002, Green was the recipient of the initial EDUCAUSE Award for Leadership in Public Policy and Practice. The award cites his work in creating the Campus Computing Project and recognizes his "prominence in the arena of national and international technology agendas, and the linking of higher education to those agendas." Green is an invited speaker at some two dozen academic conferences and professional meetings each year. He is the cocreator and on-air host of the award-winning Ready2Net programs, sponsored by California State University Monterey Bay and the Campus Computing Project. A graduate of New College in Sarasota, Florida, Green completed his master’s degree at the Ohio State University and earned his PhD from the UCLA.

Summary

Your host, Steve Worona, will be joined by Casey Green, and the topic will be "Swiftboating Higher Education on P2P: Why Higher Education Is Not the Real Problem, and Technology Is Not the Real Solution."

A steady stream of press releases from the MPAA and the RIAA about unauthorized peer-to-peer downloading suggests that college students are digital pirates and campus network officials are engaged in benign neglect. Yet ample evidence confirms that unauthorized P2P downloading is primarily a consumer market problem, not especially tied to college students on campus networks. Moreover, the media companies with strong ties to consumer broadband providers are themselves at least indirectly promoting unauthorized P2P activity. This is not new: Media companies have a long history of seeking remedy (and revenue) from Congressional action, rather than pursuing marketplace solutions.

This presentation will focus on how Big Music and Big Hollywood have targeted colleges and universities via press releases and Congressional lobbying initiatives while largely ignoring the much larger amount of unauthorized P2P file sharing taking place on commercial networks.

Note: At the request of the MPAA, the "debate" originally scheduled between Terry Hartle of ACE and Stewart McLaurin of the MPAA will not take place at this time.

Related EDUCAUSE Resources

• P2P or File Sharing
• MPAA
• RIAA
• Piracy
• Campus or Subscription Music Services
• ISP
• Archives of past EDUCAUSE Live! seminars

Additional Resources

• Lost Under the Streetlight
• There's Too Much Hyperbole in the Download Debate (subscription required)
• The Music Industry's Spring Offensive
• Swiftboating Higher Education on P2P