An M.I.T. sophomore has published a stirring editorial in the campus newspaper that compares the RIAA to a jihad nation, and winds up saying that the only way to achieve peace and understanding is to "relearn the ethics we hold dear." It's an example of an oft-repeated argument that the marketplace must change one individual at a time, and that people must reconsider ethical aspects of their consumer behavior.

If you click on the copyright and distribution information at the bottom of the piece, you find eight paragraphs of "may be distributed" and "may not be distributed" conditions. Here lies a deeper reality than the editorial's argument: "may not be distributed" is always thwarted by "can be distributed." When the technical possibility is easy and global, enforcement of "may not" is impossible, and that simple fact changes ethics. Or, I should say, it removes ethics. The marketplace lacks morals; it is as dumb as a falling object in a gravity field, acquiring its desires in the most efficient possible ways. You might as well say "may not fall" to a brick dropped from a window, or suggest that the brick reconsider the ethics of hitting someone below.

The argument plays well when made by a student, in the idealistic environment of a college campus. It might have some influence. But the larger marketplace is immune to the education initiatives (lawsuits and advertising) of the RIAA. If you want to stop the market from falling in gravity, you have to change the gravitational conditions. [via Dean at Pho]