Chapter three from Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture outlines the unfair situation endured by Jesse Jordan in 2003. His modified search engine (he didn’t even make it from scratch) attracted the attention of the RIAA, which explained that the company was entitled to an unreasonably large amount of cash to make up for “damages”.
Setting aside the unfair lawsuit, I’d like to draw attention to Jesse himself. He was a student in his freshman year at RPI. Seeing as his major was information technology, it’s no surprise (or problem) that he tinkered, fixed, and played with programs that he was interested in. In fact, an ideal academic environment would encourage students to be innovative in their field of study and experiment for the purpose of advancing their knowledge and the practical applications of the software (such as Jesse’s search engine) that were used at the time.
Even though Jesse would have been saving money for school at the time, his search engine wasn’t used for profit. He wasn’t part of any organization, and the software itself acted in a way extremely similar to Google. Should he have paid the demanded amount? Did he make the right choice? Whether or not he did, in becoming an activist he drew more attention to a battle that rages on today, and most likely will in the years to come.
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