September 11, 2006 |  O P I N I O N s By CORY DOCTOROW Special to the Daily Trojan Universities — USC especially — are at a crossroads: Do they exist to promote scholarship, or do they exist to protect the business models of entertainment companies at any cost? As students were returning to the USC campus for the 2006-2007 year, they were sent an ominous memo on “Copyright Compliance,” signed by Michael Pearce, USC deputy chief infor- mation officer and Michael L. Jackson, vice president for Student Affairs. This extraordinary document set out a bizarre, nonlegal view of copyright’s intent and the university’s purpose, and made it clear that in its authors’ views, scholarship takes a backseat to copy- right. Copyright is a bargain. It grants some exclusive rights to authors and reserves the remaining rights to the pub- lic. The Constitution’s framers were clear on this issue, having lived through the evils of monopolies endowed by the king in pre-Revolutionary times. They knew that granting monopolies to authors and their publishers was a dangerous business because the goods of knowl- edge are the core of scholarship, criticism, innovation and free speech. That’s why inter- national copyright treaties and U.S. copy- right law contain vital exceptions for educators, archivists, the disabled, scholars, parodists and artists. These exceptions have their origins in the tradition of the academy, the uni- versity’s fundamental practice of taking others’ work, analyzing it, criticizing it and building upon it. The USC “Copyright Compliance” letter doesn’t breathe a word of this. Instead, it contains passages like this: “Copyright infringement occurs whenever someone makes a copy of any copyrighted work — songs, videos, software, cartoons, photographs, stories, novels — without purchasing that copy from the copyright owner or obtaining permission some other way.” This is simply untrue — if it’s true, we should lock the library doors and arrest any professor who turns up with handouts or anyone who forwards an e-mail. Copyright infringement occurs when you make an unlawful copy of a copyrighted work. But oftentimes when you copy in the course of scholarship, you make a copy in accordance with the law. This might not have much relevance to the average person in her living room, but it’s central to what happens in the buildings on this campus. That’s why universities like USC helped pass the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act, which codifies the ways in which distance educators can use copyrighted works without permis- sion. What’s more, though “private copy- ing” is usually out of the reach of copy- right law, USC warns students in the memo that copying a “song for a friend or burning a mix CD is illegal.” Twenty years ago, the record industry wept that “home taping is killing music.” One hun- dred years ago, John Philip Sousa said to Congress, “These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. ... The vocal chord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.” In other words, it’s not new to hear that making a mix CD (that great American courtship ritual) is illegal, but it’s a little silly to hear a university taking up the demented cause of convincing music fans not to incorporate music into their culture. The memo’s purpose was to warn the student body from using peer-to- peer programs and other file-sharing tools. They did so not to warn them against using these tools to infringe copy- right, but rather to warn them against using them at all on pain of losing their Internet access. The memo equates file sharing with infringement. But this is a narrow and inaccurate view of P2P. P2P systems are the larg- est libraries of human creativity ever assembled. Even Grokster, the system shut down by the Supreme Court in a highly publicized case last year, was found by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to have more noninfringing documents than were held in the world’s largest library collections — millions, tens of millions of works that were lawful to search and download. P2P is a collection of material that might have reduced an earlier generation of scholars to tears. As a science-fiction writer, I’ve grown up with grandiose pre- dictions about the future, but no jet-pack futurist was so audacious as to imagine a repository of knowledge as rich and potent as P2P. It is this resource upon which the Copyright Compliance memo asks us to turn our backs. Why would USC trumpet this one- sided, extremist view of copyright? Isn’t the university’s purpose to pro- mote scholarship? Shouldn’t a university be aggressively defending scholarship against organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America, whose indiscriminate enforcers send sloppy takedown notices to university profs named “Usher” whose lecture audio files called “usher.mp3” are mistaken for songs by the artist Usher? The answer is that, according to the memo, “USC’s purpose is to promote and foster the creation and lawful use of intellectual property.” It’s hard to imagine a more shocking statement in an official university com- muniqué. If this statement were true, then the measure of USC’s success would be the number of patents filed and the number of copyrights registered rather than the amount of original research undertaken, the number of diplomas granted, the volume of citations in scholarly journals or even the number of Heisman Trophies garnered by the Trojans. When I wrote about this on the blog I co-edit, Boing Boing, I was inundated with e-mails from around the world and around the campus, students who had confront- ed the university copyright policies up close and per- sonal. They passed along UCLA’s ver- sion of the “don’t use P2P” memo, and while it was substantially less alarmist than the USC version, it was still short on the ringing endorsement that P2P deserves from an institution of higher learning. But USC isn’t the worst school on this subject — for example, Australia’s Queensland University of Technology advises students not to synch their iPods with their school PCs, since even copying music you lawfully own there is consid- ered illegal (I’ve just begun a research project with New York University profes- sor and author Siva Vaidhyanathan to survey these copyright policies around the country). More disturbing was the universal experience of USC students as reported in my self-selecting sample: All of the students I heard from who’d gotten into trouble for using P2P were unable to appeal the charges, no matter how rea- sonable their use of the network had been. I heard from Aram Sinnreich, an Annenberg School for Communication lecturer and doctoral candidate who had been censured by USC for using P2P on campus. Sinnreich had been called upon USC copyright rules are flawed | see Doctorow, page  | A sign of the times I should have been appalled by the reactionary letters in the Daily Trojan regarding the Middle East Crisis from both Arab and Israeli supporters and critics. I was appalled not by the hostile words or the hateful undertones of the letters but by the inability of writers to understand the right of their oppo- nents to have their beliefs published regardless of their political stance. Instead, writers from both sides, in the midst of their thinly veiled barbs, both claimed that the Daily Trojan had no right to print the opin- ion of the other. I said I should have been appalled; lately, it seems all too common that belief means a disregard for all others and disdain for those who think otherwise. Perhaps this reaction is caused by the prevalence of talk radio or opinion-based television, but I think otherwise. Perhaps we have all forgot- ten to stop and listen. Any institu- tion such as USC should exist not to restrict the expression of opinion; instead, it should help to foster dia- logue between opposing groups by constructive means. The Daily Trojan, by printing these L E T T E R s u | see Letters, page  | According to the memo, ‘USC’s purpose is to promote and foster the creation and lawful use of intellectual property.’ It’s hard to imagine a more shocking statement in an official universal communiqué. u www.usc.edu/VISIONSandVOICES Eric Bentley’s Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? The Investigation of Show Business by the Un-American Activities Committee 1947–1956 6 p.m., Scene Dock Theatre Open to USC students, faculty and staff RSVP at www.usc.edu/visionsandvoices Join us for a reading of Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?, a humorous, but always chilling and gripping play, that dramatizes one of the most damaging assaults on personal liberties in the history of the United States. Pizza will be served before the performance. Rwanda Portraits of Survival and Hope 5 p.m., Mudd Hall of Philosophy Courtyard 6 p.m., California African American Museum, Exposition Park USC’s Donald Miller will discuss his work with an association of Rwandan orphans and his travels with photographer Jerry Berndt. Following the conversation, we will walk to the California African American Museum for the opening of Orphans of Rwanda: Portraits of Survival and Hope. Music, Healing and the Brain: Oliver Sacks, M.D. 4 p.m. Mayer Auditorium, Health Sciences Campus Free and open to all World-renowned professor of neurology and author, Dr. Oliver Sacks, discusses the role of the humanities in medicine. Sacks is the author of nine award-winning books that have sold several million copies worldwide, including Awakenings, which inspired the Oscar-nominated movie starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and numerous medical journals. Water and Power 6–10:30 p.m. Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles Free for USC students; RSVP required USC students will take a trip to see Water and Power, a potent story of contemporary Los Angeles written and performed by Culture Clash. The play captures the pulse of the city and asks urgent questions about who really runs the streets of L.A.: the police, the gangs or the politicians? FRI SEPT 15 For more information on these and other events, please visit our website. WED SEPT 13 THURS SEPT 14 FRI SEPT 15 SO LD OU T D O UT SO L WIN 10 free tickets for you and your friends to attend the Cool Weekend Late Show at the University Village 3 theatre. Just register to be a user at www.dailytrojan.com and click the link that appears once a week in the e-mailed headlines! TEN! Difficulty level: 4 (of 20) Sudoku Look for it each day in the pages of the Daily Trojan .com Answers online at DailyTrojan.com 8 3 9 2 7 6 5 4 1 6 7 4 3 1 5 2 8 9 5 2 1 4 8 9 6 7 3 7 8 2 1 6 4 3 9 5 3 4 6 9 5 7 1 2 8 1 9 5 8 3 2 7 6 4 4 6 7 5 9 1 8 3 2 9 5 8 6 2 3 4 1 7 2 1 3 7 4 8 9 5 6 8 3 9 2 7 6 5 4 1 6 7 4 3 1 5 2 8 9 5 2 1 4 8 9 6 7 3 7 8 2 1 6 4 3 9 5 3 4 6 9 5 7 1 2 8 1 9 5 8 3 2 7 6 4 4 6 7 5 9 1 8 3 2 9 5 8 6 2 3 4 1 7 2 1 3 7 4 8 9 5 6  | September 11, 2006 O P I N I O N s Letters opposing views, has done just that. If anything, USC needs to do more to promote the expression and com- munication of opposing viewpoints. Perhaps then, in our own small way, we can contribute to peace in the Middle East instead of throwing more verbal tinder on the fire. Dan Kacinski junior international relations Missing promised goods Dear Conquest realtors, What first lured me to signing a lease with your housing agency was your kiosk stationed in University Village that displayed a teenage blonde whispering to me, “You know you want it.” I am writing to say I do — I want it. In fact, I want it right now. Although reluctant to admit this, my sense of duty as your ten- ant compels me to inform you that, as of today, I have still not received it. Where is she? When I moved in I was surprised to not find her wait- ing in my bedroom, but I became | continued from page  | genuinely concerned when she was in neither my bathroom nor my kitchen. Alarmingly, she has yet to be seen by any of my neighbors, either. Would an e-mail to your main office suffice, or should I fill out a maintenance request form? Is there a way to move up on the waiting list? It has been almost three weeks now. Perhaps, like your Tuscany com- plex, there are delays. This is understandable — I am patient. Also, please know that I am quite flexible as to the kind of girl you send. To me, blondes are but golden brunettes (although I’d prefer if you kept her young, please). Please know, however, that if you fail to provide any girl at all, I will be forced to con- sider her absence an instance of false advertising and a breach in my hous- ing contract. I believe receiving a girl of my choosing is proper reparation for my wait, and I would be happy to negotiate such a selection time with your human resource department. Thank you. P.S. If easier, I can make a selec- tion out of a catalogue of your premi- um girls in lieu of having a meeting. Daniel Tkach junior English Doctorow to testify in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the use of P2P networks, his area of study. Another student had been punished — by being cut off from the Internet — for downloading a copy of Lawrence Lessig’s freely redistribut- able watershed text, “Free Culture.” Both students asked the administra- tion to reconsider their punishment; neither student heard back from the school. Who on campus needs P2P? Computer science majors who want to study the architecture of P2P. Cultural studies majors who want to study the way that new culture diffuses through the network. Public diplomacy majors who want to study the way that P2P unites people across cultures and pro- vides a lifeline for diaspora popula- tions. Music majors who want to listen to public-domain works from the last century. Law students who want to examine the facts and the record on P2P use. English majors who want access to a stupendous library of pub- lic-domain texts. Not to mention anyone who wants access to works licensed under Creative Commons, a licensing regime that encourages the public redistribu- tion of creative works with the bless- ings of those works’ creators. My first novel, the award-winning Tor book | continued from page  | titled “Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom,” was the first book released under a C.C. license just after the project’s launch in January 2003. Since then, more than 700,000 copies have been downloaded from my site. It has been translated into many languages, and has gone through six English-lan- guage printings. Six months ago, there were 60 million C.C.-licensed works; now there are 160 million works whose authors wish to see them redistributed. These works are legal payload in P2P networks, and their authors are glad of P2P’s novel architecture that relieves them of the cost of hosting and distrib- uting creative works. Universities should devote them- selves to pedagogy and scholarship, not promoting the business model of the sinking dinosaurs of last year’s entertainment companies. Today’s record executives were the pirates against whom Sousa railed in 1908. Hollywood’s studios were founded by people looking to rip off Thomas Edison’s patents. Yesterday’s pirates turn into today’s entertainment execs in the blink of an eye. The university should study this phenomenon, criti- cize it and analyze it. To take sides in this issue is ridiculous. u Cory Doctorow is the inaugural Canada-U.S. Fulbright Chair at USC’s Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy. He is co-editor of www. BoingBoing.net. Open a Wells Fargo College Checking® account and get a free USC t-shirt.* Wells Fargo is proud to be the official Financial Services Partner of the USC Trojans. Visit our Adams & Broadway Office at 141 W.Adams Blvd.to open an account today! 103478 6x7 bw *Available while supplies last. © 2006 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC. wellsfargo.com 103478 6x7 bw 8/11/06 11:42 AM Page 1 SPECIAL EGG DONOR NEEDED Preferred Donor: +HLJKW$SSUR[LPDWHO\·RU7DOOHU Caucasian +LJK6$7RU$&7VFRUHV College Student or Graduate Under 30 Athletic No Genetic Medical Issues For more information or to obtain an application please contact Michelle at the Law Offices (866) 330-6036 or email DonorInfo@Pacbell.net COMPENSATION $80,000 Paid to you and/or the charity of your choice All related expenses will be paid in addition to your compensation (Extra compensation available for someone who might be especially gifted in athletics, science/mathematics or music) 7KLVDGLVEHLQJSODFHGIRUDSDUWLFXODUFOLHQWDQGLVQRWVROLFLWLQJHJJVIRUDGRQRUEDQN Could you sell an organic chemistry book to a theatre major? a d v e r t i s i n g The Daily Trojan team Then we want you. We’re looking for reliable, enthusiastic students to work part-time as members of a new team of advertising sales representatives. 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