Napster has no legitimate use
letter to the editor
In his letter, Peter Godlewski complained about the University cutting off his access to Napster and other programs that allow people to steal intellectual property at will. Had he bothered to read the whole message the University sent out, he would have seen this for himself. Even granting that Napster doesn't pose a security risk to the network, the other deleterious effects it has were more than enough to justify banning it.
Godlewski complained that the University can afford to expand its bandwidth capacity, so banning Napster on that ground made no sense. Let's see, what should Notre Dame do with its resources: buy more bandwidth so that Napster use (for which I see no legitimate use) drops to, say, 10 percent of capacity, or ban it outright? That's a hard call. You can't honestly expect Notre Dame to subsidize copyright infringement.
Godlewski opined that Napster (that single most useful program for college students) is not illegal. Strictly speaking, that's true. Neither is a beer, by itself. It's WHAT YOU DO WITH IT that matters. Copying music files without permission of the copyright holder is simply not legal. When you buy a CD, you buy the rights to personally enjoy that copy of it. You do NOT get to do whatever you want with it.
The point is, you don't own the music and so you don't have a right to trade it, copy it and etc. Having never used Napster, I can't tell you what other uses it may have. I can tell you that 40 percent of the bandwidth getting sucked up by its use, when it has no obviously legal use, is an easy and legitimate target for University action.
Those of us who use the network for legitimate reasons should not have to wait for our information to squeeze through the Napster traffic.
Neil Dube
Law Student
April 4, 2000
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, April 5, 2000
