It took a lot longer than most students expected, but the university has finally terminated its woeful relationship with Cdigix. Yet, I am worried we will see this process repeat itself. First, it seems to be almost taken for granted that the university must do something to stop illegal music sharing. Moreover, because many people get so entrenched in arguing over the morality or legality of file-sharing, they naively come to accept as fact that any legal music service must be encumbered with Digital Rights Management.

The recent staff editorial on Cdigix’s demise is troubling because it concludes that any new service “should have at least similar functionality as iTunes, where music is downloadable and able to be placed onto personal audio devices.” This simple statement ignores the two major issues that make university-sponsored music a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. First, there is the ubiquitous assumption that the university must provide some kind of service to students to download music. If the university feels so compelled to provide us with entertainment, then why stop at music? In fact, any rationalization for a university-subsidized music service would at least also require subsidizing movies. So tell me, should your tuition or fees be paying my Netflix bills?

Second, this hypothetical service does not truly exist because the digital music market continues to be severely handicapped by DRM. These unnecessary restrictions are supposedly to stop piracy. However, DRM is not really about piracy. As Ken Fisher of Ars Technica argued so well recently, “DRM’s sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you.” Digitally restricted media allows content distributors and hardware manufacturers to create a “lock-in” that destroys any semblance of a free market.

Please don’t take my mention of iTunes above as an endorsement. In fact, iTunes is encumbered by the same compatibility issues that made Cdigix so unpopular. Yet, these issues are mostly masked by the iPod’s market dominance: Consumers don’t realize the restrictions placed on their music purchases until they try to move to different hardware. The problem with this is that when you buy restricted digital files now, you are making your investment based on the assumption that you will always want to use that class of hardware in the future. This may or may not matter to you, but from an economic standpoint, it’s a monopolistic practice designed to lock consumers into certain products. Hardware companies will spin things a bit differently. For example, Steve Jobs recently wrote an essay that claimed the hardware lock-in argument is a fallacy. Rather, he says that the only reason iTunes uses DRM is because the record companies won’t license their music without it. I’m hesitant to buy into this line of reasoning because Apple is already voluntarily selling thousands of songs that have no need to be hassled by DRM. My roommate’s band sells its songs on iTunes, and even though they have no record contract that would force Apple to restrict its songs, Apple cripples them anyway.

Because many legal alternatives to piracy exist, if the university provides another option it will at best be equal to anything else we can already access. Until DRM becomes ancient history, any “legal” service will be forced to use it if it wants to license music from the major record labels – a feature that most college students would demand. This would mean that any service the university chooses must pick from one of the very few DRM options (e.g., Microsoft or Apple), and anyone who doesn’t have the acceptable hardware will be upset. For now, let’s just let students acquire their music how they want. Some like the convenience of iTunes, those who care about the fidelity, freedom or long-term options for their music opt for CDs, and a lot of students will continue to share their music for free. Any university-sponsored music service is bound to be a net loss for all involved, and a DRM-crippled service will ironically increase the appeal of the unencumbered, illegal alternatives.

Chris Conroy is a junior computer science major. He can be reached at cconroy@gmail.com.