UNIVERSITY first years encounter many new pleasures in their first week in the dormitories: the abolishment of curfews, readily available kegs and high-speed Internet connection courtesy of the school, free of charge. This last perk -- in combination with new computers -- makes first-year college students easy candidates to abuse Internet music downloading services like Kazaa or Morpheus. The Washington Post reports that at American University, orientation leaders counsel first years to stay away from this illegal activity. Downloaders are now subject to being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA has a valid point in wanting to protect the copyrights of recording artists. However, the methods required to hunt down possible downloaders involves infringements not justified by their purpose. If the protection of intellectual property and the protection of personal privacy are mutually exclusive, then forfeit the former in favor of the latter.
Napster was shut down successfully two years ago, but numerous other file-sharing companies shot up in its place. However, in April a federal judge upheld the legality of other file-swapping services, including Morpheus. He reasoned that VCR manufacturers were not responsible for illegal video copying on their products. So, this time around, the RIAA is attacking the individuals rather the corporations. And that's where privacy issues come into play.
The RIAA issued hundreds of subpoenas to recover the actual identities of suspected file-sharers. One user balked and is currently fighting the corporation's right to extract her personal information from her Internet company. The case has both brought to light additional complications with the notion of internet privacy and threatened to standardize a process by which the recording association can perpetually hunt illegal downloaders through equally unjust means. The RIAA does not seek the identities of proven criminals, but possible ones. Their grounds for violation of privacy rest on suspicion alone.
A recent court decision supports the RIAA's attempted actions. The RIAA asked Verizon Online to provide the name and contact information of one of their customers. Verizon refused, but the court ruled against them. The resulting precedent will allow copyright owners to easily demand names, phone numbers and home addresses of Internet consumers. More disturbing still, requests from fake copyright holders are impossible to detect from real ones without an authority higher than the one that currently grants the subpoenas.
This decision is a huge blow to personal privacy rights. The average citizen probably wouldn't be thrilled with having any further engagement with most of the Web sites other than one-sided observation. The beauty of the Internet is in the anonymity of the user. Already, a gay pornography Web site has issued subpoenas to an Internet provider to get personal information about visitors. In a more wide-reaching effect, Web site owners can identify constituents for marketing purposes. Imagine how many Web sites the average person visits in day. Spam is problematic enough as it is, but the constant harassment by every Web site a user visits could make e-mail accounts virtually unusable. Beyond annoyance, access to private information could aid in more serious problems like stalking and identity fraud.
Today, Amazon.com is a multibillion dollar business, many colleges insist on electronic applications and you can order plane tickets to your front door without even picking up the phone. But before interactive Internet could become mainstream, accessible and successful, proponents of the internet need to conquer the obstacle of safety. Many of the best features of the Web require user input of information including home phone numbers, addresses and credit card information. Experience, along with elaborate privacy guarantees, finally have succeeded in convincing consumers that it is safe to use their product. Only with this advancement has the value of the Internet reached its current immeasurable heights. And now the precedent of the RIAA's investigation threatens to tear down what time and work have built. People must trust an institution in order for it to make a contribution. If people didn't trust a bank, it would cease to exist.
Thus the privacy of Internet users must be preserved to the fullest extent. The most obvious way to think of this is in the protection of one of the most basic civil liberties: personal privacy. And for hard-headed pragmatists for whom personal privacy ranks low on the list of necessities, think in rational, economic terms. The diminishment of Internet privacy undermines the utility of what is arguably the greatest invention of our lifetime. Issues of intellectual property are an important consideration, but infringement of privacy rights is simply too great a price.
(Kimberly Liu's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kliu@cavalierdaily.com.)
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