The effect of the digital economy act on students and universities

The effect that the digital economy act (D.E.A) on students and universities is fairly diverse as it can cause financial hard ships for students and difficulties for universities. After researching the usages of people aged 14-21 as well as 22-29 the reason that these demographics where used is because it was felt that they best represented the general populace of students either in colleges or universities. Students have a large data turn over with the need for software as well as the desire for music and the latest films.
Research shows that students making up the demographics are the most likely (60%) to use dubious sources for the files as well as being prolific transferors of files making the D.E.A affects them the most out of any other demographic with the threat of disconnection to the internet being an interesting predicament as well as the fines and the possibility of their computer being confiscated
Changes that affect students will mean that there are less infringing materials and software available as well as making it more complicated to get at the sources of these issues. Currently there are no changes that should affect a university although there are plans for this to be added but Ofcom has planned to restrict the scope of the initial code to exclude colleges and universities giving them some breathing room to adjust to the new act and get ready for when the scale is expanded to cover them as well Repercussions of these changes affect students are much the same as any other demographic but given their need for swapping data at regular intervals and other information could be throttled by mistake leading to poor performance and the dropping intellectual targets, not only this but with added possibility of fines it could even lead to individuals being unable to continue study after heavy fines making them unable to meet rent or tuition fees. With such heavy handed tactics in place there would be a greater need web anonymity forcing students to consider VPN’s or gaining access to other networks through means of deception or hacking. If the scale of the act is increased to cover universities as well it could place huge strain on already heavily loaded technicians and administrators that would have to become a sort of internet police, a role that many internet service providers are already strongly opposed to how ever there is no way to completely stop this as its already discouraged on some campus’s with the ports the certain peer to peer clients operate on completely blocked so the university is not responsible for any secondary infringements as of the copyright, design and patients act of 1988. Consequences that can be applied are varied as they start with a warning from the isp then a reduction of bandwidth and then the complete remove of the internet service and then a fine. The rights that are eroded are the right anonymity in the internet this is a serious problem that has been increasing ever since the concept that the internet is police able in the same way that the physical world is, which is just wrong and as it cannot be thought of a singular individual that commits a crime it should be thought of as a group that obtain their files from somewhere and then pass it to each other the source Is the issue not the receiver.