Editor’s Note: Chris Dearner is an OU IT employee.

OU Information Technology recently announced the roll-out of a new wireless network, “OUWiFi,” which will replace the old “ANY” network.

In addition to changing the name of the network, users are now required to register each networked device using their 4x4 Sooner Net IDs, as well as completing a “copyright tutorial and quiz,” much like one is required to do before purchasing Internet at home.

To add to all of that, OU is blocking Limewire, Kazaa, and Gnutella – which is a real hit to all of the illegal downloaders still living in 2002. Bit torrent will still be available over the wired network, ensuring that today’s illegal downloaders will have to go that extra step and actually plug their computers into an ethernet jack.

As tempting as it is to continue criticizing IT for an irritating and most likely ineffective new policy, the root of the problem is somewhere else.

After all, IT is just trying to comply with section 493 of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, which ties federal funding to (among other things) institutions having “developed plans to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents.”

This provision made it into the bill thanks to our friends in the recording industry who are absolutely sure that the Internet is going to mean the end of music as we know it – the same way that John Philip Sousa was absolutely sure that newfangled recording devices were going to “ruin the artistic development of music in this country” in the early 20th century.

Very probably, the industry will turn out to be just as right as Sousa was.

And in order to avert the content apocalypse, the entire recording industry has been lobbying heavily, having poured over $23 million into Washington since 1990. Thanks to their efforts, infringement is punishable by “five years jail time” as well as “a minimum of $750 per song … plus a $250,000 fine,” according to IT’s Web site.

These penalties are a result of the NET Act of 1997 – the sponsor of which, Bob Goodlatte, received campaign donations from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, as well as a number of individual media conglomerates.

So, thanks to Bob and our friends in the biz, if you illegally download Metallica’s latest album, you’ll owe $257,500 and face five years in jail.

If you go to a brick-and-mortar store and steal it? Well, the penalty for a first conviction of “larceny of merchandise” under $500 in Oklahoma is up to thirty days in county jail and a fine of $10 to $500.

But they haven’t just been pushing for obscenely large fees. They’ve also been notoriously sue-happy over the years.

According to IT’s e-mail, OU has received over 1,500 violation notices this year. The RIAA, the industry’s attack dog, is undoubtedly behind many, if not most of these. What sort of track record do they have?

So far, they’ve sued a homeless man, a 12-year-old girl, a dead woman and a 19-year-old transplant patient.

But I’m sure all of those infringement notices OU gets are perfectly valid.

This is the sort of information it’s worthwhile to have about the current state of copyright law.

While I don’t doubt that IT has good intentions and is trying to provide some sort of education about copyright law, it’s a one-dimensional and peculiarly blind sort of education.