It was bound to happen.

Lawyers representing the bands that are suing Napster for making their music freely accessible over the Internet have found a new target. Warning letters have gone to several universities asking them to restrict the use of university computer networks to access Napster. The letters contain nothing so crass as formal threats of litigation, but they speak of “moral, ethical, and legal obligations” [emphasis added] and the mailed fist is clearly cocked.

The idea of university responsibility has some surface plausibility. The whole Napster brouhaha was triggered by universities’ installation of high capacity lines that enabled the music-loving, leisured, technically-savvy student community to access such a band-width-hogging service. A recent study found that Napster takes up 75 percent of the capacity of some university networks, and 34 percent of schools have already banned it from their networks on economic grounds.

Surface plausibility, maybe–but no, it won’t wash. Artists and record companies have the right to protect their intellectual property (see Naughty Napster), but this does not mean that they should be allowed to destroy the village in order to save it, or to trample values of free expression and economic good sense in a never-ending quest to plug every loophole. We do not need a copyright equivalent of the insanity of the War on Drugs.

Neither universities nor any other institutions should be told they must certify every website used by members of their community, or review every bit-stream to ensure that it is either not protected by copyright or allowable under one of the many exceptions, such as fair use. Any such rule would clog the intellectual pipes of inquiry and innovation by inhibiting the free-wheeling use of the marvelous resource called the Internet. And what would come after censorship for copyright issues? Censorship of sex? Violence? So-called “hate speech”? Communications demonstrating a disrespect of established authority?

If a Website, such as Napster’s, violates copyright, it can be sued, as indeed the company is being sued. But as long as the courts have not shut it down, no one else should be required to assess its legality. The universities, which have gotten in the habit of bowing to every special interest that can claim political correctness, should recover the ancient faith that freedom and autonomy must be defended constantly, and stand fast against any obligation to become censors.