The Tune of Legality

Because of my particular attachment to Harvard, it was encouraging to see the Crimson take an interest in the theft of music in recent editorials. It is no doubt part of a much-needed conversation about a vital issue to the music community, fans, higher education and anyone interested in working in an intellectual property-based industry (which probably includes most Harvard graduates).

Let’s start with the facts. Nearly four years into launching our deterrence campaign from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), there likely are few college students out there who don’t know that downloading from unauthorized peer-to-peer (P2P) systems is illegal. Moreover, these days there are also innovative legal online music services like Ruckus, which offers free and legal music to any college student in the country.

And yet, every piece of data suggests that college students still overwhelmingly get their music illegally. College students represented only 10 percent of the sample in an online study by market research firm NPD, yet they accounted for 26 percent of all music downloading on P2P networks and 21 percent of all P2P users in 2006. Moreover, college students surveyed by NPD reported that more than two-thirds of all the music they acquired was obtained illegally.

College students used to be the RIAA’s best customers. They’re now among our worst. But it’s not just the loss of current sales that concerns us: The habits students form in college will most likely stay with them for a lifetime. Hence our focus on universities.

Record companies have embraced digital distribution models of every kind. There is a greater availability of music now than ever before in history. And to encourage the legal acquisition of music, we have provided educational materials to help deter illegal downloading (www.campusdownloading.com). Our companies have even licensed legal music services at steeply discounted rates for college students. But still the theft continues.

Should we not stand up for our rights when people continue to steal? Imagine how much more music would be stolen if we did not. Litigation has never been a preferred or solitary action. But unfortunately, it’s a necessary part of the equation. Remember no matter the business model, a basic respect for the property rights of creators will always be necessary for such an industry to stay healthy. Record companies do not profit from this litigation. But we spend the money on this program because we must protect the integrity of the digital marketplace, no matter how it may evolve in the future.

Opinion on this page and elsewhere has pointed toward a larger question: Should universities act simply as passive conduits, complying with the bare minimum under the law and essentially turning a blind eye to the wanton theft of creative works? Specifically for Harvard, a university that has always perceived itself as a leader among its peers, that’s a path devoid of conviction or leadership.

Institutions of higher learning like Harvard should be instilling tomorrow’s leaders with a sense of values and respect for property. The economy of tomorrow will be driven by what we create in our minds, not by what we manufacture. What kind of lesson is communicated to students when a university abdicates its responsibility to impart to students the values that will support, rather than undermine, an economy based on intellectual property?

We all know how aggressively university faculty and administrators pursue plagiarism. Yet they say nothing when their students illegally take thousands of songs without paying for them. This double standard is unacceptable. The Internet has made plagiarism difficult to control, just like illegal downloading, but no one suggests that universities should pursue a different “business model” and simply accept plagiarism.

And don’t administrators have an obligation to prepare students for the real world, where theft is simply not tolerated? A Business Software Alliance study conducted last year found that 86 percent of managers say that the file-sharing attitudes and behaviors of applicants affect their hiring decisions. Students should know that what they do online can impact their jobs, their opportunities, and their future.

Many university officials have recognized that they are stewards of campus resources like their computer network. After all, it’s university bandwidth that’s being abused when students use networks intended for educational purposes to engage in the theft of music, movies, software, and more, slowing down the network for everyone and forcing the university to spend more to increase capacity. The prevalence of illegal downloading on a college campus should be as unacceptable to universities as it is to us.

But it’s the role of the university as an educational leader that is paramount. Teaching students that it’s not okay to steal someone else’s creative work is an important message to convey. Doing so requires more than boilerplate warnings not to infringe. It requires leadership, and Harvard should do nothing short of stepping up to the challenge.



Cary S. Sherman, a graduate from Harvard Law School, is the President of the Recording Industry Association of America.