Internal Debate: Musical Chairs

You may or may not recall that I study at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a university somewhat unique in that it's mostly composed of students who either a) couldn't get into MIT, or b) could have, but didn't actually want to. What this nets you is a very large population of average college students who also happen to be pretty darned smart -- and a fair number of folks whose idea of entertainment is reciting Pi to forty digits* while downloading a screener of some movie weeks before its theatrical release.

Consider, for a moment, the college student's natural craving for all things free and open. Be it music, videos, high quality feature-length films, or the very operating systems on which they do the downloading, free is the only option for many a college youth. WPI is no different; students want whatever they can get their hands on, and with a yearly tuition, room, and board total in excess of $43,000, WPI's studentry wants free stuff more than most.

Of course, the university's administration knows this, which is why they've gone to some pretty extreme lengths to disable every possible file-sharing service known to man. LimeWire? A dream gone sour. eDonkey? Kick it to the curb. BitTorrent? No cascades of free files in this pool. I could go on and on.

Not that blocked ports and scrutinized networks can stop WPI students. Where there is a will, the way has already been paved for mass transit. That's why I find the Wall Street Journal's recent online article so hilariously on the mark.

In short, the article details the existence (and subsequent failings) of online music services that certain colleges have been subsidizing to offer legal alternatives to file sharing for their students. Students have access to a selection of free music, so long as they never use it on their IPods, never burn the music to CDs, or give up access to the music they've downloaded once they leave their college (the stipulations vary depending on the service). Apparently, these systems aren't working out.

Well, duh.

If colleges want to stop their students from trading files illegally, then they need to do more than have their IT departments block a few services or play musical chairs with doomed companies, trying to allow restrictive access to select songs. "But," I hear you asking, "what, then, is the answer?"

"Hey," I respond, "why should I care?" My fellow students have already found a workaround. And that's exactly the problem.

* For the record, I can only go to twenty digits, myself. You may stop snickering.