Technology will never solve all of our problems. We can put men on the moon, we can cure diseases, we can slow death, we can erect infrastructures to control nature, we can modify genetics, we can influence life, but there are some things that technology cannot help. For instance, the sophistication in medical equipment mobilizes doctors to save the lives of our sick, homeless brothers and sisters that fill our backstreets, but our engineers and scientists are incapable of preventing the poverty that results in these sickening conditions.
This is a paradox that we must learn to accept as future leaders. As students, it is not practical to seek a singularly technical education any longer. The issues we face are far too complex. We must be scientists and humanitarians; domestic patriots and global citizens, entrepreneurs and activists. Throughout the course of history, mankind has sought solutions to a host of issues through the pursuit of technology. Sometimes, technology is enough to eliminate surface manifestations of a problem, but for most social issues, a simple technological fix is inefficient at getting to the root of a problem that is nontechnical in nature.
Whether you realize it or not, today we are faced with one of these social dilemmas here at home and across America, albeit the world, that challenges our moral character and the lessons we’ve learned here at Rensselaer. Embodied by technical, cultural, ethical, and legal ramifications, virtually the entire campus knows of the problem, but 35 of our fellow students know even better. Digital music piracy is not just a technological problem, but a social problem that can no longer be ignored.
In the last eight years alone, this culture of digital music has evolved before our eyes, becoming ingrained as a part of our everyday life. Some people who have studied the issue suggest that more than 90 percent of students our age own illegal music, movies and/or software. With these statistics holding, the individuals targeted by lawsuits find it difficult to understand why they are being singled out in a culture where virtually everyone is guilty. This is not the right attitude to have. Any disregard for intellectual property, copyright law, or patent law is a crime. If you risk the crime, you risk the punishment pursuant to being caught.
How, though, do we address such a complex issue? What solution is there?
The Student Senate sees a two-pronged approach: helping to prevent the temptation to download by offering a legal alternative (a technological fix that can help reduce the problem but not end it) and educating about the ethics of such digital deviance (the only true response that gets at the root of the problem). In considering the first approach, the Senate found that offering a music downloading service had many more benefits than just serving as a legal alternative. We found that 80 percent of students actually wanted a legal music downloading service which parallels the desires of students from other universities around the country. The hot services that are helping distinguish residence life experiences at schools of higher education are no longer just the internet and cable. Students are now looking for schools that offer access to Ruckus, Napster, Rhapsody, C-Digix, or other online music service providers to curb their appetites for music. It just so happens that students from institutions offering such services have been able to avoid lawsuits and the bad press it entails since they are less inclined to download music illegally.
Even with such a service, though, we realize that we will not solve the problem. As our very own Dr. Langdon Winner of the STS Department writes in his book, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, “What matters is not technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded.”
Our social system has become conducive to the illegal actions involved in music, video, and software piracy. Just because people continue to get away with it does not mean it is right. The ease with which music can be shared presents the ultimate dilemma. Many people don’t see it as a crime because it is a so-called victimless crime. They see it as harmless, yet it is hard to accept that a company is any less a victim than an individual when it is deprived of its wealth. Rather than fall victim to the temptation to download files you do not have a legal right to, truly consider what you are doing. The dilemma is simply a new version of old moral issues, such as right and wrong, honesty, responsibility, trust, accountability, and fairness. Just because others are falling victim to a lapse in judgment doesn’t justify your actions to do the same. Pay for what you own or do without.
It’s that simple.
