Re: Blocking P2P

[Kevin Shalla <kshalla () UIC EDU>]

This is not just a problem with students.  Many non-students I've spoken
with (generally law-abiding) have the same misconceptions about what is
legal and what is illegal regarding copyright.  Here's a conversation I had
about a year ago.
Mother: "I bought my son a CD burner so that we wouldn't have to spend so
much on buying new CDs."
Kevin: "You know that's illegal, don't you?"
Mother: "It's not illegal because we get the music from the Internet."
I wonder how many people think that photocopying books is illegal.  Our
society seems to believe that if it is technologically simple then it must
be legal.  Indeed, that has historically been a major means of reducing
crime - make it difficult.  Because new technology makes copyright
infringement easy, I think we need to turn to a more effective means -
education and social pressure.  I read a history of Walt Disney which
included a section on movies he made that were not primarily intended for
entertainment.  In fact, the US government turned to him to produce a movie
encouraging people to pay income taxes.  He asked why they don't simply
punish the non-payers with the usual punishment like jail time and
fines.  The response was that you simply cannot put tens of thousands of
people in jail - you need to get nearly the entire population to comply
without punishment.  We need to do the same with copyright.  While people
are more aware of copyright infringement than they were a few years ago,
they need to be made still more aware, and those convicted of crimes need
more publicity.  We need nearly everyone in the country to recognize what's
wrong, and abstain from it without punishment.

At 11:21 AM 2/4/2004, Sauvigne, Craig M wrote:
> However, I had a discussion with one student who said that it must be
> legal to download any music because "everyone does it" and "it is so
> easy to do". I told him it was illegal to download material that is not
> specifically made available by the copyright holder. He then said he
> would not use p2p anymore and just copy his friend's CDs since that must
> be legal since CD burners are so common.
>
> Sometimes I wonder about some people who make it into college.
>
> Craig

Kevin Shalla
Associate Director of Information and Technical Services
University of Illinois at Chicago
Office of Admissions and Records (MC 018)
1200 W Harrison, Room 2131
Chicago, IL 60607-7161
(312) 996-1231
kshalla () uic edu

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