I guess the saying goes, "Kids will be kids." Colleges are now threatened by Congress over copyright infringement if they do not provide information or "acceptable answers" for measures that they have taken to prevent students from illegal downloading and file sharing. Umass being one of the schools on the list of 20 that Congress has posted does not have me worried because I have not downloaded anything music or video related over the Internet. It's not that I would not like to download songs for free like so many other students do, it's just that I don't have an mp3 player and putting things into a digital format for me is not important so I don't need to download any music.
It would make sense for Umass to make Napster available for students to use if they are a current member of the student body to download legally the music and making it available to students to play songs from their lists but only if they are a member of the university and enrolled. Other colleges use Napster for their students, free of charge, making access to all of the songs available on the server available for play. Songs can be played in their entirety but can not be downloaded. This seems like a sensible solution to at least cut back on the number of students that are downloading illegally from the campus, and it could make the university less likely to be a threat from the illegal downloading scene. With such a large student body, it is difficult to control so many students, but this could be a step in the right direction.
The penalties for the downloading crime should be severe because I don't see the importance of listening to music all of the time when the industry is constantly coming out with new songs all the time and the songs live out their existence usually over a two month span. The solution that I have suggested may not fix the entire problem, but they didn't build the Great Wall of China in one night either.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
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