File-sharing laws unclear

The $3 million lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of American that junior Jordan Greene is facing for sharing music files on the Internet is nothing groundbreaking—the central issues of the downloading battle have no changed much in the past couple of years. This lawsuit is just the most recent in a wave of lawsuits filed by the RIAA in an attempt to curtail file-sharing.

What has changed, however, is the scope of the matter. The charges and the potential consequences seem to be getting bigger, and having Greene named in the lawsuit means that the issue is hitting closer to home for many Duke student. If the RIAA lawsuits are meant as scare tactics, they are effective. The risks of file-sharing can no longer be ignored.

Despite the familiarity of such lawsuit, the legality of file-sharing is still poorly defined and understood. It is not always clear what types of file-sharing fall into the “illegal” category, since the laws regarding sharing files have not been established. There are distinctions between sharing on a network and sharing on the Internet, but these distinctions are not always clear and the laws are equally as ambiguous.

The law has not caught up to the technology. Copyright laws were originally written to protect material on physical CDs, but how copyright laws translate to digital media have yet to be clearly delineated. Furthermore, the music industry and the artists involved in the industry are not all on the same page. Many lesser-known artists want to release their music freely on the Internet because it can get them exposure. This, however, only makes defining legal and illegal downloading more difficult.

In the absence of firm legal precedent, the University has the appropriate policy in respect to file-sharing. The administration does not police downloading or file-sharing, taking the position that students are adults and can make their own decisions about whether or not to download music. This policy is beneficial for students and keeps the University from overstepping its bounds. Presently, Duke is one of an increasingly smaller number of universities that do not regulate student file-sharing. Even in lieu of Greene’s lawsuit, the University should continue to leave file-sharing decisions up to individual students, at least until better legal boundaries have been established.

For years now, most people have assumed that downloading music is at least somewhat illegal. At the same time, however, many people continue to download music because it seems like a relatively harmless crime. Now that more and more individuals are being named in lawsuits from RIAA, including a Duke student, it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the culture of downloading. At some point the risks of downloading will begin to outweigh the benefits, and only then will students stop file-sharing. The question now is how many students will have to be sued before the culture starts to change and illegally downloading music ceases.