Lost Under the Streetlight

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Lost Under the Streetlight

10/29/2004

By Kenneth C. Green

It may be convenient to blame higher ed for its w'es, but the recording industry might be better served to look closer to home.

A cop walking his beat one night finds a drunk on his knees, searching for something on the street. The cop asks the drunk, “What are you doing?” “Looking for my car keys,” says the drunk. The cop asks, “Where did you lose your keys?” “I don’t know,” the man answers. The cop, a bit perplexed, asks, “Then, why are you looking here if you don’t know where you lost your keys?” Responds the drunk, “Because the light is better here, under the streetlight.”

Admittedly, this is not a great joke. But it is a telling joke: The drunk is taking the easy way out, yet given his search strategy, it’s unlikely that he will find the lost keys. The story came to mind early in September as I read a short (five-page) report prepared by the Joint Committee on the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities on the Progress of Addressing Illegal File Sharing on College Campuses. As described by The Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept. 3, 2004), the Joint Committee is a “higher education and entertainment industry group” that has “scrutinized song-swapping among college students over the past two years.” The Committee’s co-chairs are Penn State president Graham Spanier, and Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (www.riaa.org). The Joint Committee’s September report summarizes the efforts of a growing number of colleges and universities to “address the challenges presented by digital copying and distribution ...through peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks.”

The Joint Committee’s report was submitted to the Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property of the House Judiciary Committee, which, according to the RIAA Web site, “has long been interested in illegal file-sharing on college campuses.”

Stipulating the Facts

As they say in law school (or at least in the movie Paper Chase), what are the facts of this case?

Fact One—Let us agree that copyright is a good thing: authors, artists, musicians, and the corporations involved in developing and distributing artistic work should enjoy the legal protections and financial benefits of copyright.
Fact Two—Let us agree that long before the Internet, the Web, Napster, and Kazaa, many individuals who purchased recorded music also made copies, either for themselves or for family and friends. Although unhappy about this private duplication of content, the recording industry did not make a major effort to track down wh'ever may have been buying blank cassettes at Radio Shack.
Fact Three—Let us agree that many individuals, including—but not limited to—those of “college-age” (ages 18 to 68?) have used the Internet to access and download digital content (i.e., music, movies, and other media) using P2P networks, and have done so in violation of the letter and spirit of copyright.