LOGGING IN WITH . . .
Jeremy Lipschultz
Scholar Fears That Banning Online Recordings Could Lead to Banning Ideas, Too
By SCOTT CARLSON
Jeremy Harris Lipschultz is a professor of communication at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he directs graduate studies in the communication department. In 1994, he shifted his study of regulations in traditional media to a study of the Internet. His latest book, Free Expression in the Age of the Internet (Westview Press, 2000), shows that people and issues online have already posed challenges to traditional conceptions of the media, the Constitution, and copyright and other laws. Consider, for example, the sticky matter of Napster, a World Wide Web site that can distribute copyrighted songs without the copyright owners' permission. A rock band recently sued three universities that let students use the site. Universities have responded by blocking access to Napster, a move that has raised more questions about the universities' loyalty to free expression and free inquiry.
Q. Where should universities stand on the Napster issue?
A. As a free-expression issue, I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of universities' blocking anything. As a legal issue, I would understand why they do it, because they're concerned about the liability of making this program available. People such as [the rock band] Metallica, who are concerned about this kind of trading, should be addressing those concerns at the sources of the problem. The precedent that I'm concerned about from a university perspective is that once we start blocking, where do you draw the line? I think it becomes too easy to start blocking sites because we don't like their ideas.
Q. Many tech-savvy students find their way around the blocks. Would it be better if universities offered educational programs about copyright laws?
A. At the university, we should do more for media literacy. Given the day and age that we live in, every student should not only understand copyright laws, but should also be able to critically evaluate all media, including that which we find on the Internet. It's unfortunate that we don't do more media education, beginning in the elementary and middle schools.
Q. In what way are people uninformed?
A. People should be able to deconstruct a media message and really look at how and why it was constructed. I know that as we move our students through that process, they become more-critical consumers at the end. That's how you elevate the level of dialogue and debate. I doubt that most of the folks who are trading music on Napster have thought much about what they are doing beyond, "Here's a song I want." They don't understand the process that exists in the music industry.
Q. Some years ago, people said the Internet would be a forum for ideas, but has it really just become a tool for consumers?
A. Well, it has become more commercialized, and what happens when you commercialize a medium is that it tends to favor the values of the marketplace, and those are not always the interests that we want to favor. It's really rather predictable. If you study the origins of radio or television or cable, the level of innovation is always highest at the beginning. But it is also true that every new medium shares the commonalities of old media -- that old-media concepts are transferred to new media. The Internet is becoming a mass medium, and what comes with that are the advantages and disadvantages that are common to other mass media.
Q. How will the convergence of digital television and the Internet affect the media?
A. It will probably further commercialize and standardize them. The Internet started out as a place that was wide open. People were communicating without commercial pressures. It was a text-based system that favored ideas. That has evolved to become more and more like television. If you look at the Shockwave plug-ins, the digital graphics -- it starts to look a lot more like that rapid-fire medium that we've seen on television.
