Colleges, Downloading, and Congress
The Rocky Mountain News has a great editorial on the recent attempt to force US colleges to play enforcer in the battle between music owners and college students who download music illegally from the internet. The proposal to strip federal financial aid from colleges with the highest level of illegal downloading activity is a stupid idea for a number of reasons. Until the social issues are addressed, enforcement is never going to be very effective. And frankly, those who will be most likely to abide by the rules are the more studious students who are also more likely to be those with financial aid. The team enforcement approach may work in military units, but college is not set up that way. More to the point, college administrators are staffed and financed to be run an educational experience, not to provide investigation and policing services to private business.
I have nothing against the movie and music industries suggesting these approaches. But it’s the job of the Congress and other policy makers to analyze the pros and cons and the relationship to our overall public policies, and to make good decisions.
How about this? If the loss of revenue from illegal downloads is as high as the industries say it is, then it would be quite cost-effective for them to pay for a staff person on each college campus to provide information and education services to the students on this issue. Let the industry pay people to come up with alternative social constructs for sharing music and hanging out. That’s a job I might even like to have.
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