Issue date: 3/29/07 Section: Editorial/Opinion

The United States has unofficially been conducting a "War on Drugs" since an 1880 agreement with China that made importing opium into the country illegal. In a move that had more widespread effects in the 1920s, the prohibition of alcohol was enacted attempting to curb drinking nationwide. Coupled with the bans on drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, these government actions against drugs were, and are, theoretically supposed to result in producers spending more than they receive from buyers, and therefore eliminating the selling and usage of illegal drugs.

Instead, in the 1920s, drinking was not decreased or eliminated on a massive scale, as producers just found loopholes so they could continue to sell booze for profit. And as we all know, alcohol is not

illegal now. Likewise, despite the fact that pot is illegal, it is pretty evident in modern times that it isn't very hard to find someone willing to sell it to you for a given price.

While the drug war pits government against producers and users, it is clear to the average American that the U.S. drug policies haven't done much to change the culture. Basically, the drug users and dealers are winning a war they don't even know they're fighting.

And so it goes with illegally downloading songs and movies from the Internet.

Now while a war on drugs is obviously a more serious situation, it draws a strong parallel to the current war against illegal Internet file sharing waged by the government and music corporations across America.

According to an article on the WEAU-TV Web site, 23 UW-Eau Claire students have been subpoenaed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) because of the illegal downloading of songs off of Internet database networks.

To find out if a student is illegally downloading music and videos, the RIAA checks the Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is an identification number picked up every time a student goes to download a song, according to the article. All the RIAA has to do after that is match the IP address with the face of the user and they have themselves a lawsuit.

Eau Claire is one of 36 colleges across the nation that has been subpoenaed and told to release the names of those students believed to be violating copyright laws on campus Internet networks, according to an e-mail from Eau Claire Chief Information Officer Chip Eckart.

Obviously, more than 23 students at Eau Claire illegally share music with one another through the Internet and other technological advancements, so clearly these lawsuits are meant to scare students away from using file sharing networks like Kazaa, LimeWire and Morpheus.

Continued...

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