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Every now and again I receive an unusual request from one of my students. Such an event occurred last week, when a student came to my office with a rather odd problem. She is a student in the philosophy class that I am a teaching assistant for, and she informed me that she has thus far been unable to purchase the textbook for the class. Her request was that I allow her to borrow my textbook so that she could photocopy all of the class readings. She explained to me that the book is expensive, and she has thus far been unable to purchase it. I was forced, ethically, to explain to her that I could not facilitate what would be a flagrant infringement on copyright laws, but that I would make her a few copies until she figured out how to solve her problem. I have since had to do this for one other student whose textbook was stolen.

In both cases, I have felt awkward about essentially walking the line between helping others and breaking the law. This is a common problem for many in the field of education. As textbook prices soar and weird stuff inevitably happens to students, they are often left scrambling to make ends meet, and they cut corners wherever they can. It is tempting, especially when one is in a position to help, to overlook certain legal issues, such as copyrights, in order to help those in need. This is symptomatic of a deeper problem, one that we all face everyday. It is the problem of unsecure intellectual property.

Even if you have never been in the type of situation that I am describing, if you own an iPod or a computer, you have probably been tempted to download pirated material. Some of my graduate classes utilize copyrighted material, seemingly without compensation to the author (usually they are dead, which seems better but perhaps is not). There are laws which allow certain degrees of uncompensated usage, but I am unclear about what they are, and I suspect they are casually broken with some regularity. Either way, this is a big problem.

Intellectual property is an odd thing, because it doesn’t seem like it belongs to those who produce it. In our era of massive transfer of information, where literally anything is available online, it is difficult to protect your own ideas. Those who trade in ideas are especially vulnerable, because they have no choice but to put their product out into the world, and hope that people are respectful of their rights. Sadly, this often is not the case.

To those of you who insist that there is nothing wrong with downloading and copying whatever you can, regardless of whether the individual who created it is being compensated, please remember that most of the material available in cyberspace is not the work of millionaires, but hard-working individuals who you are literally robbing blind. No one will ever catch you, so the only consequences are those imposed by your own conscience. Plenty of free material out there is very good, so there is little reason to insist on taking that which is not given away. Stealing intellectual property is like any other kind of stealing, with the crucial difference being that you are expected to police yourself. As an amateur writer whose material is vulnerable, I ask you to please show some restraint so that persons like myself can continue to provide you with something to read.