AS A FULL-TIME student at the University, I often find myself sheltered from news of the outside world. Between classes, work or the life of a politico, who has time to watch the nightly news? Sure The Cavalier Daily tells us most of the major headlines, but overall I'd say I am like most college students - oblivious to the world outside Charlottesville.
I spent the entire summer in my sheltered-state here at the University. However, I clearly remember the day my friend came up to me and said, "Hey did you hear? Napster's shutting down!" Shocked and in disbelief, I hurried to Newcomb's e-mail station and loaded Napster's Web site. Sure enough, there was the headline that Napster had been sued and was pending shutdown. I doubt that any college students nationwide haven't heard something of the latest "campus-controversy" known as Napster. With mounting litigation and similar lawsuits against other mp3 sources such as MP3.com and the Scour Exchange, Napster has become something of a hot topic for lawyers, politicians and students alike.
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However, many up-and-coming artists have jumped on the mp3 bandwagon in order to distribute their music and gain a following. Likewise many current popular artists have released their music in digital format for sale. Some studies actually have shown that Napster-users are more likely to purchase music CDs from retail stores after sampling songs online. But at this time, the recording industry feels that too few people are paying for the entertainment they are getting and have taken this case to the U.S. Courts.
Whatever your feeling about the lawsuit, it raises a more important point of debate: "Is using Napster ethical?" Napster should be a particularly big issue here at the University because of its effect on the honor code which most of us hold near and dear to our hearts.
There are those, including the Recording Industry, who feel that Napster is basically facilitating copyright infringement by allowing people to distribute boot-legged copies of songs in near-perfect CD-quality. From an honor standpoint, I think this should be true. Downloading copyrighted songs without paying for them is a form of stealing and should be considered an honor offense. But I must admit that I find myself saying, "Well maybe it is an honor offense, but does it harm the community of trust?"
So does downloading illegal mp3s harm the community of trust? If you believe it does, then it is a sad state of affairs for the University indeed, because mp3 usage has been going on for years now at college campuses across America.
There are many students who do not see the downloading of mp3s as a harmful act. I myself have trouble in seeing where the immediate damage from collecting songs by my favorite artists lays. There is definitely a moral issue at large here. Maybe there isn't any apparent harm being done to our community of trust, but recording artists do have the right to protect their work.
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In response to this issue, I have taken it upon myself to generate as much discussion or debate as possible. I think it is very important that we as students at the University come to terms with whether or not we are all guilty of violating the honor code. This is certainly something all students should consider, for I can easily say that most people here at the University currently use or have used Napster at some point in their academic careers.
Everyone who feels that this topic merits discussion is invited to attend an Open Forum for Discussion on the topic of Napster. This Forum will be an event where students, faculty and staff will all come together to talk about the ramifications Napster will have both on a national level and on us as members of the community of trust. This event will be held in Minor Hall Auditorium on Monday, Sept. 25 at 5 p.m.
(Chris Husser is a second-year College student. He is president of the Student Computing Group.)
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