Lawmakers & Campus Piracy, DRM free iTunes

The Chronicle: Daily news: 06/06/2007 — 04: Lawmakers Encourage Colleges to Consider Using Technological Tools to Curtail Campus Piracy (requires account)

Congress appears to be getting interested in the issue of campus downloading. Campus administrators appear to be pushing back, stating that technology can’t be the only answer:

But Gregory A. Jackson, vice president and chief information officer of the University of Chicago, argued that neither bandwidth-shaping tools nor signature-matching software like Audible Magic would consistently block illegal file sharing on high-speed campus networks. He and Adrian Sannier, university technology officer at Arizona State University, both warned that colleges that invest too heavily in antipiracy software may end up caught in an expensive “arms race” between technology companies and enterprising file swappers. (Mr. Sannier’s institution does use Audible Magic, however.)

Mr. Jackson said copyright infringement was, first and foremost, a social problem, and he added that technological countermeasures have “only limited and transitory effects.” And he and Mr. Sannier said some students would continue to feel they have a powerful incentive to download music illegally until record companies make that music — unencumbered by digital-rights management tools — available online.

The “arms race” referred to here (also known as “cat and mouse”) is common in other difficult-to-enforce areas of law, like speeding. The administrators correctly point to the most effective way of promoting compliance: changing the norms of downloading. Unfortunately, efforts to “provide informational materials” to students (as required by the TEACH Act) are likely doomed to be ineffective against the appeal and ease of the technology.

…also in the news

Apple’s new DRM-free iTunes tracks have been found to contain information about the downloader. This has met quite a bit of criticism (as one story said, “it doesn’t mean that we can just start sharing the love, so to speak”), which I find quite surprising. I believe Apple’s (and other’s) argument for removing DRM was to enable playing on a variety of players and platforms–not to allow filesharing. The coverage that this has received makes me wonder about what user’s expectations are of downloaded material. Perhaps they are really quite savvy about their technical “rights.” Since downloaded material isn’t physical, I would argue it should be no surprise that things like the first sale doctrine might be on their way out. I would just be nice if the pricing structure would change to match these new realities.