Purdue on the right trax

Within the next couple of weeks, Purdue students will enjoy a privilege most students in Bloomington are already privy to -- free music downloads. The difference is the downloading in which Purdue students will engage will be legal. Through an agreement with a campus-oriented file-sharing company, Boilermakers will be allowed to download hundreds of thousands of music tracks without giving up a red cent. IU students should be taking notice.\nEminem, Dave Matthews, Queens of the Stone Age, Bjork, U2, the White Stripes, Saul Williams -- the list of artists from which we steal is endless. It's simple. We download our favorite peer-to-peer file stealing program (KaZaA Lite is a safe one used by many students) and disable sharing, allowing us to steal music under the radar. It's shameless. It's wrong. It's illegal. And many of us do it anyway.\nIt's a matter of economics. The risk involved in illegal downloads (with sharing disabled) does not outweigh the value we place on our music. We hear about some sucker who was caught and sued by the Recording Industry Association of America and make some comment about how idiotic that person was for not disabling sharing. Then we, a punkish band of miscreants, continue on our path of misconduct. \nBut Purdue officials have decided to try to put an end to that for their students. At no charge to residents of Purdue's dorms -- the Purdue University Residences office is footing the membership bill -- students can download as many songs as they want through Ctrax, a division of Cdigix. Ctrax has an agreement with the RIAA, so all of America's most favorite music is fair game.\nAlthough some Purdue students have said the plan won't attract off-campus students -- those not living on campus must pay a $2.99 monthly fee for the service -- it will most likely reduce the number of students engaging in illegal file-sharing. \nThe main problem with the Ctrax plan is the fact that the downloads are tethered, meaning students can download all they want, but they can't send tracks to CDs or other computers. For each song transferred off the hard drive, students are required to pay 89 cents. For a full CD, that's not a great deal.\nRegardless, IU should pursue something -- anything -- to keep us from committing the plethora of offenses that have plagues our college experience. Or, at least, the crimes we feel bad for in the tiny nook in the back of our minds.\nIt is, of course, our own faults for stealing copyrighted music illegally. Downloading music that does not belong to us and then burning it onto a CD is the same as walking into Virgin Records and picking up the Dave Clark Five with the five-finger discount. And so, technically, IU doesn't have to do anything about the problem, since it is the problem of each student who engages in it.\nBut IU should do something, like Purdue's new contract with Ctrax, to dissipate the current phenomenal wave of apathetic digital looting. If the University would consider a Ctrax agreement, it would achieve that goal, but it would also send a message to students and the recording industry that our campus takes illegal downloading seriously. If things continue the way they are, the looting will continue until the RIAA comes after those of us who disabled the sharing option.