Napster raises ethical issues for children and parents

BY LARRY MAGID
Special to the Mercury News

The controversy surrounding Napster has elevated the issue of kids and copyrights to prime time. Millions of people -- many of them teens and pre-teens -- have used Napster to download copyrighted music without permission from the copyright holders.

That, according to the recording industry, violates copyright law. U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel agrees, which is why Napster was ordered to filter out copyrighted songs when asked to do so by the copyright holder.

While there has been plenty of talk and testimony about Napster's impact on the music industry, lost in the discussion is the impact this debate is having on kids and families. Although the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) hasn't aimed its legal guns on individuals who download music, implicit in the court's ruling is the notion that anyone who knowingly uses Napster to transfer copyrighted material is violating copyright law.

Does that make your kids and my kids criminals? I don't worry about the copyright police showing up in the middle of the night to haul them away, but I do worry that the entire Napster debate may add even more to young people's cynicism about what is and isn't legal and -- more importantly -- what's right and what's wrong. Let's face it, unauthorized copying -- whether it's music or someone else's term paper -- has become very easy. But just because it's easy, doesn't make it right.

It would be politically correct but hypocritical to tell you to never allow your kids to use Napster because even though my kids and I have had some heart-to-heart discussions about copyright violations, I have not enforced a ban of it in my home. I haven't encouraged it, but keeping my kids off Napster is not my highest priority.

Part of that, I suppose, comes from my own ambiguity about the service. Deep in my heart I know that unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material is stealing. But I also know that it's extremely convenient and lots of fun, and I can make a case why it's ``harmless,'' despite the fact that recording industry has convinced several judges that it's actually quite harmful to the industry's business interests. In other words, like a lot of parents and Napster users themselves, I am caught in a contradiction. If I ever run for office, I'll have to admit that I downloaded but that didn't ``inhale.''

The issue goes far beyond Napster. To begin with, there are lots of Napster-like services on the Net that will continue to operate, regardless of what happens to Napster. Many of these services are pure ``peer-to-peer'' systems without any central servers to shut down.

In some cases, they're software programs that allow users to connect their PCs to other users' machines. You can't issue an injunction against a piece of software, and it's awfully hard to crack down on millions of individual PC users scattered across the globe.

If copyright violations are to be reduced, it will have to be either by moral persuasion or by providing an attractive legal alternative such as a subscription service that provides high-quality music to families for an affordable monthly fee.

Many of the other peer-to-peer file sharing services allow users to exchange videos, graphics, software and electronic books. In other words, all digitized media is up for grabs and other industries -- including motion pictures and book publishers -- are scrambling to find ways to protect their assets.

While I'm a bit conflicted on how to handle copyright violations, I have no ambiguity when it comes to the issue of plagiarism. Claiming credit for someone else's writing, photography or other work is a serious ethical infraction. Journalists and scholars can be fired for it, and college students can be kicked out of school for passing on someone else's work as their own. Yet, in today's copy and paste world, it's as easy as typing ``Ctrl C'' followed by ``Ctrl V.''

There are many types of plagiarism, ranging from copying a paragraph or two without attribution to downloading an entire term paper from a variety of Web sites that sell or give away student papers. One site I visited claims to ``offer over 40,000 FREE essays'' on just about any subject.

In addition to blatant plagiarism, there are some subtle things that parents and teachers can watch for. Read student papers carefully for evidence of passages that seem to be unoriginal and talk with your kids about the difference between research and plagiarism. It's OK for them to quote short passages provided they credit the source, and it's also OK for them to draw upon the ideas of others as they formulate their own thoughts -- but blatant copying is clearly wrong.

Also check for photos, illustrations and other graphics that aren't attributed. When my kids were in elementary school, I caught them pasting graphics downloaded form the Net into their student papers. It wasn't exactly criminal behavior, but it did bother me.

While the copyright law makes some ``fair use'' exceptions for educational use of copyrighted material, there is no excuse for using other people's work without proper attribution.

In today's ever-changing technology environment, knowing what's ``right and wrong'' can be a bit more complicated and sometimes not as ``black or white'' as it once was. But that doesn't eliminate a parent's responsibility to talk with their kids about ethics, honesty and integrity. Some things never change.

Freezone.com folds:

Sadly another child friendly Web site is about to disappear. Freezone.com, one of the first children's online communities, will tell its members on Monday that it plans to shut down on Friday a source inside the company says. Founded in 1995, Freezone is one of the first Internet children's Web communities. The site specialized in allowing children to chat but unlike most other chat services, the company employed trained adult supervisors. The site, which has 700,000 registered users, is known for its strong commitment to safety and privacy. It will be missed.