The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has decided to mimic the efforts of its music industry counterpart and put pressure on universities to curb student piracy. The organization notified its partners this week that it would begin sending out letters to college and university presidents in the US "calling their attention" to the anti-infringement provisions of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 (HEOA). The letter—copied to the campus CIOs—asks universities to cut off infringing students or face potentially crippling consequences.

What are those consequences? The HEOA now requires universities to take steps to stop copyright infringement on campus in order to receive state funding and student aid. Of course, the MPAA isn't capable of pulling university funding over some shared movies, but the organization is capable of spending millions of dollars to lobby state and federal officials to enforce those parts of the HEOA.

The MPAA's letter also pulls on the heartstrings of universities that are trying to keep almost-graduating students optimistic during a poor job market. "[M]ore than 2.4 million workers in all 50 states depend on the entertainment industry for their jobs," reads the letter. "[O]nline theft is a job-killer than also reduces the number of opportunities for graduates of your institution to make a living in the creative sectors."

The MPAA has set up a site to help direct higher education officials to legal ways for students to obtain content and cut down on piracy. Some of these suggestions include "educational seminars," school-specific content portals, and implementing full-on blocks of "rogue" websites.

This is the first major push from the MPAA against copyright infringement on college campuses. The RIAA, on the other hand, has earned a reputation in recent years for sending warnings and prelitigation letters to numerous universities in hopes of scaring students into settling before going to court. A number of universities, however, pushed back against the RIAA, arguing that they couldn't identify individual students based on IP addresses alone.

The MPAA hasn't yet begun to send notices about specific instances of infringement, but the letter warns that the organization plans to start. So not only will universities start getting pressure to head piracy off at the pass lest they lose funding, they will also begin receiving letters about suspected infringement for each incident identified by the MPAA.

The threat of a loss in federal funding will undoubtedly get the attention of college administrators. Many schools, however, already have strong IP enforcement policies in place, so HEOA-related threats may carry little weight at those institutions.

Listing image by Peter Szustka