Info/Law

Cory Doctorow has posted and annotated a message that the University of Southern California sent to all its students warning them not to engage in filesharing activities that infringe copyright — and defining those activities extremely broadly. I understand that administrators want to warn students not to engage in illegal copying on the school’s computer system. That seems appropriate. But the sweeping statements in this letter, supposedly intended to clarify the law, instead oversimplify it to the point of complete distortion. The letter exhibits no recognition of the various exceptions that copyright law provides, even fair use. The worst of it probably is this jaw-dropping statement:

As an academic institution, USC’s purpose is to promote and foster the creation and lawful use of intellectual property. It is antithetical to this purpose for USC to play any part, even inadvertently, in the violation of the intellectual property rights of others. The USC policy regarding student use of USC computing resources clearly states that a student who reproduces or distributes copyrighted materials in electronic form without permission from the copyright owner may be removed from the USC computer system and face further disciplinary action.

First and foremost, I thought the mission of a university was to advance knowledge, not to collect patents and copyrights. I know we’re all supposed to be thinking about tech transfer and the like, and I’m all for that, but as a beneficial by-product of our work, not its purpose.

In any event, the idea that “copying without permission = infringement” is pernicious and erroneous. Were that all a plaintiff had to prove to establish infringement, copyright law wouldn’t be very complicated. Illegal downloading on campus is a problem and universities need to work on it. But these crude and simplistic explanations of the law undermine institutional credibility and they cloud the fundamental issues instead of clarifying them.

A more measured approach that recognizes both the problems and benefits of P2P technology and university responses to it is exemplified by Terry Fisher’s congressional testimony on the subject.  And the American Council on Education has produced a more balanced, yet still straightforward, explanation of the relevant law.

Filed under: Copyright, Digital Media, Education & Copyright, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Music, RIAA