How File Sharing Is Spiteful but Cheating through Facebook Isn’t So Bad

Here’s the next installment in my series (parts one, two, three, and four) on Clay Shirky’s new book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.

In Chapter 4 (“Opportunity”), Shirky discusses the fundamental attribution error, “the desire to attribute people’s behavior to innate character rather than to local context,” in the context of the rise of file sharing via Napster in the 1990s. He notes that some people (notably the recording industry) claimed that the rampant piracy of MP3 music files was a sign that young people of that generation were less ethical than those of previous generations. Shirky notes that other people described the same behavior not as an indication of moral bankruptcy but as a sign of a new ethos of sharing and community.

Shirky writes that both of these views are examples of the fundamental attribution error, that these views assign beliefs to people to explain behavior that is actually better explained by changing opportunities. Shirky writes:

“Napster spread for three much more prosaic reasons: (1) digital data is infinitely and perfectly copyable at zero marginal cost; (2) people will share if sharing is simple enough, and we generally resist being spiteful [by not sharing] under the same conditions; and (3) Shawn Fanning [creator of Napster] designed a system to link (1) and (2) via the right incentives.”

I think this is a reasonable analysis of the rise of “file sharing” (such an innocuous euphemism) but Shirky somewhat surprisingly misses an important aspect of this topic. On the very next page after the above passage, Shirky introduces the notion of negative externalities, the negative consequences of our actions felt not by us but by others. However, Shirky doesn’t apply this idea to the file sharing / music piracy example. Sure, college kids were willing to share their MP3 files and they probably didn’t want to be “spiteful” by not sharing their music with their friends down the dorm hall, but they didn’t consider how their actions might affect other people, like the song writers and musicians involved in the creation of the music being shared through Napster. Those negative externalities (the loss of royalties that these creative people depend on for their livelihood) weren’t often considered, since we’re generally fine with sharing what we have when the cost of that sharing is born by people we don’t know personally. Living in Nashville, I do happen to know some of those people personally, so I have a different perspective on this!

The solution to “file sharing” that the recording industry applied was to sue random college kids who used Napster. While that might “unlink” reason (1) and (2) above, as Shirky writes, it doesn’t address the negative externalities involved. Since I’m higher education, I’ll suggest a different solution to the file sharing / music piracy problem: Education. That is, education about negative externalities. Instead of imputing on those who share their MP3 files some kind of immortality, why not educate them about the systems we use in the US to produce music, the people involved in those systems, and (here’s the math educator in me speaking) some basic numeracy? (Sure, that song writer or session musician might only two get cents per CD that’s sold, but when you sell 100,000 CDs, that adds up to $2000!)

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that there’s something to this idea of using education about negative externalities to foster “collective action.” For example, I don’t know many people personally who will be affected by rising sea levels as the planet warms up, but as I’ve learned about the consequences around the world of rising sea levels, I’ve been motivated to live a little greener.

Are there other aspects of higher education where these ideas shed some light? Remember that student who was almost expelled for creating a Facebook study group for his chemistry class? Is it a fundamental attribution error to assume he was less ethical than other students in the course just because he went online with his study group? The other 146 students in the online group didn’t face expulsion, after all. As Shirky writes, “Facebook lowers the cost of social coordination among its users.” Was the “cheating” that went on in this online group any different, ethically, from the “cheating” that occurred in prior years in face-to-face study groups?

Speaking of cheating, should discussions with students about plagiarism perhaps focus on educating them about the negative externalities that result from plagiarism? Not thinking about some song writer’s income is akin to not worrying about a writer’s intellectual property, I think. I’m teaching a first-year writing seminar this fall, and I’ve been tasked with teaching my students about plagiarism, so this topic is something I’m sure I’ll be thinking about a lot in the near future.

What your thoughts on these topics? Did Shirky miss the boat in his analysis of “file sharing”? Can you think of other examples where we impute character flaws to people (students) when changing opportunities better explain their behavior? And can education help people (students) change their perspectives on negative externalities?

Image: “T’ Jolly Roger, aye.” by Flickr user Nick Humphries, Creative Commons licensed