Wednesday, February 29, 2012

File Sharing


Kyle Monteleone
Information Ethics-E
No, it is very similar to sharing a record or movie, the fact that it can be copied is what makes creators of the said media angry. In reality the creator is not losing much service, in fact in many cases they gain from it. When I have my friend synch his I-pod onto my account he goes home and re-synchs it onto his computer. When he listens to the music he finds songs that he likes, he then looks up the artist that sings the song and buys more of his songs. Songs that I never would have bought. Widespread file sharing online such as a website giving away free music should be shutdown. But simple friend to friend file sharing should be left alone as it is just the same as sharing a record or movie with a friend, there is no money made from file sharing and the users most likely would have never bought the song in the first place. The exception to all of these rules are the large file sharing sites such as Sharebear or Limewire. Users use these sites to get music that they are seeking for free, it is not shared with a few friends but with the entire would and while the users should not (and in fact cannot) be prosecuted the creators of these sites are the ones who should be held accountable for the loss of revenue to artists.  

Sunday, February 26, 2012

The beauty of Creation


Dan Swank
Pd. E
2/24/12





The usage of copyright in the world




As we all know, the worlds entertainment is constantly being changed. Whether it be the music industry, technology, or books, all ideas are inspired from something in the past. I feel like I can relate and understand this topic perfectly because as a musician, I am constantly writing songs to play with my band. Sometimes, when I'm listening to a song from another band, and idea pops in my head and a song is built upon that random idea. I wouldn't be able to write songs without hearing other artists. Even with my band, the music we play is inspired to sound like bands such as All time low, blink 182, and A day to remember. They are the people who inspire us to make music in the first place, so therefore we can thank them for even picking up an instrument. And these bands who we look up to, looked up to bands when they were young as well. I like to think of it as a constant, never ending cycle of ideas and inspiration. In my opinion, file sharing should not be illegal, because I think getting ideas out to people is so important. It's important for society to grow and constantly progress in a forward direction. If idea's stopped, creations would stop; it's as simple as that. I know that most musicians (at least the ones I listen to) make music because they love to do it, not to make millions and be holly wood stars. And if fame and fortune happened to come as a result of making music, then that's great. But I think most musicians would want their music to be shared and heard by all people no matter what, even if they didn't make “millions” off of it. Music, literature, and all ideas are so pure, so why charge money and stop the sharing of them? I am inspired by things I hear, and my own work comes the things I hear. In no way should we ever take someones work and copy it completely, but I think it is important that we hear other ideas to help create our own. Like I said, it's just a cycle of ideas, innovation, and creativity. We should take ideas that we hear or see, and build on them; put our own spin on them, and try to take these ideas and make them into something even better. So, in my opinion, sharing should not be illegal.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Editorial


Chuanpu Sun
24/2/2012
lifeskill,E
Copyright will be useful in promoting the progress of culture

Any new creation are all created by people's hardworking or some great idea though it's probably just some remix things. If anyone want to make a new creation, he has to pay a lot of time and effort to work on it.
Like “slide to unlock” by the Apple, many new creations don't really have too much value on themselves, but something valuable is the ideas. The creators spent a lot time, sometimes also a lot of money, to think of the new ideas, and make it true. At this time, if someone just come on and take your effort away and use it for free though you don't allow that, anyone will get really mad, right? If no one can protect your interest at this time, you will get really mad and sad because whatever your think is really great and how valuable your think is, everyone can just come on and take it though you don't like that. Do you think the creators will still trying to create any new things at this situation?
The copyright is the strong law to protect that interest. It can never make all the people don't use pirate things but it make at least eighty percent people get away from pirate things to buy the authentic things because they don't want to get into trouble and that don't really “waste” them too much. And with this eighty percent wealth to get back, the creators will probably be encouraged and make more useful and great things for people, and this is how copyright can be useful in promoting the progress of culture.
MLA:
Jolly, David. "A New Question of Internet Freedom." Editorial. New york times.
N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/
technology/06iht-acta06.html?ref=technology>.

Ross, Patrick. "Copyright Laws Work Well Against Illegal File Sharing, Also
Called Online Theft." Editorial.
New York Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Dec.
2008. <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/12/22/
copyright-laws-work-well-against-illegal-file-sharing-also-called-online-theft>.

Can We Do It Any Other Way?


Where does it start and where does it stop? Where can we limit the power of the government where must the government allow its citizens to work things out on their own? How can a government already swamped with the task of ridding themselves of trillions of pounds of sludge possibly take on the daunting task of tracking the file sharing of millions of songs, books, and movies alike? The truth: it is out of their control. Yes, copyright laws exist for a reason and yes, people exploit them, but the undeniable truth is that if a change is made to the system, then unimaginable new problems will be faced, and the original problem could possibly be the least of the government's worries. The copyright laws in place today are not perfect, but they are undoubtedly the lesser of two evils.
We live in a world where the news we hear and digest is usually negative – someone has died, someone has been hurt, something has been destroyed. In the same light, file sharing has not destroyed the music and entertainment industry as the media likes to advertise. Does every kid listen to music they did not pay for and watch movies that they do not own? No, they do not. The industry itself has realized that these things exist and has created innovative ways to create incentive for consumers to ethically enjoy entertaining information without having to pay the sometimes lofty prices that paid-for songs especially can add up to be. Take Netflix for example. The company creates an affordable and reliable network of movies and TV shows to a broad audience for a small fee every month. By doing this, they offer the consumer the ability to “take the high road” rather than get drawn into the very alluring illegal file sharing industry. The best part about Netflix's particular innovation: they did it WITHOUT the government's help! Industry, as it always has in the United States, overcomes all obstacles to create profitable business for itself and useful services to its customers. Copyright was initially produced to create incentive for creativity and innovation in the country, and, although most people claim that this creativity has been hampered, Netflix is a key example of how copyrights continue to encourage creativity. At first there were movie rental stores, then On Demand, and now a company has taken advantage of the most useful resource to humanity: the Internet. In the grand scheme of things, as talked about in the U.S News article, the author of a best-selling novel is well protected by the copyright laws, and as I see it, people as a whole do not want to break laws in order to obtain entertainment, but they will do so if given the option of wasting money on songs or getting free and easy music illegally.
Works Cited
Ross, Patrick. “Copyright Laws Work Well Against Illegal File Sharing, Also Called Online Theft.” Editorial. U.S. News. U.S. News and World Report, 22 Dec. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2012.

Copyright Laws Work Well Against Illegal File Sharing, Also Called Online Theft


Life Skills E
February 24, 2012
Aaron Magazine

Copyright Laws Work Well Against Illegal File Sharing, Also Called Online Theft
The people of America need to be free of copyright laws so that they can combine songs and images into there own remix. The people's mash-up culture is right alongside copyright law. But why are the people doing this? Because copyright law is purposefully ambiguous, encouraging such creativity. This mash-up culture does not rely on file sharing. The internet and the market are providing alternatives, that will be made by the property rights system that will give the creators power over the production and distribution of the work they have made. The rights system we have in America can not be switched to empower file sharers at the risk of the artist and their creativity to continue, create and distribute their work. We should not be focused on legalizing theft, instead we could be supporting legal alternatives and teach the people the importance of the creators rights. To give up on online theft is showing a lack of faith in intelligence and reason of the American people. It surprises me how many people do illegal things. Users don't even know right or wrong on the web and it is just the easy way out of things if they can get that game or piece of music for free. America has gotten out of hand and now people are stealing the creators' work and posting it on the web illegally. Websites such as piratebay; you can download any game or music for free! The creator has to get credit for the hard work he or she put into her work and file sharing has gotten out of hand. Forming copyright was a good way to protect the creators work and it made sure they would be credited. What infuriates me is how greedy we are in America. We always want to take the easy way out of everything and we don't care about anyone but ourselves. We don't care if we rip off the original creators' work, as long as we can get that article, game or piece of music for free. Hopefully one day America will open their eyes and see what is actually happening. Creators' work is still being stolen today and it has to come to an end.

Citation
Ross, Patrick. "Copyright Laws Work Well Against Illegal File Sharing, Also
Called Online Theft."U.S.News22 Dec. 2008: n. pag.U.S.News. Web. 23 Feb.
2012. <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/12/22/
copyright-laws-work-well-against-illegal-file-sharing-also-called-online-theft>.

Copyright is away from what it should be


     I read two articles about copyright. These two articles represent the two completely opposite opinion about the function of copyright. One says that copyright is well-doing in promoting the science and technology to evolute. The other, says that the copyright's law is not working in the wrong way and its extreme control is not necessary. From my opinion, I agree with the second one, I think copyright is away from its original job and not helping develop our society.
     First of all, the author mentioned that the amount of organized crime has been increased and the government developed the law of protecting the rights of the creators. It seems that there are more and more peer to peer piracy happened in the past ten years. Many experts claims that the right of creators are being impinged, it is unfair to their creativity. In order to promote the science and culture. The government makes the creators feel their inventions are worth and meaningful. So the copyright's law is becoming more and more powerful. But actually, this also produce other important problem. And to our surprise, this problem is about the creativity, which is regarded as the things we protect well.
     In a video called “Everything is remix”, which shows people a creative action is divided into three parts: copy, transform and combine. The idea of that movie is warning people that every creativity need the original things to transform and combine. We are not just copying directly and we are inspired by each other. On the other hand, does the copyright's law really protect creator's right? I definitely doubt that. Even though many creators won their lawsuits, they still did not get anything from this. The money went into others' pockets, especially the companies and lawyers. What's more, the society is blaming the children that they get use of many things online without the copyright, they do not respect the creators enough. But I think that is a action of killing the creativity of kids. They get information from the products of others and have their own ideas or views of that. They would think of some thing different from the normal rules and adults. We should impulse them to be creative but not just stay away from other inventions.
     In conclusion, Copyright lose its balance between protecting creators' rights and helping the Science and culture progress. As the creative score of children is going down, we should think about how to promote our creativity in a appropriate way, and recognize the real function of copyrights.
Lessig, Lawrence. “Prosecuting Online File Sharing Turns a Generation Criminal.” Editorial.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Editorial


Kevon Chambers
2/15/12
Period E



Ethics Editorial

The article that I read was mostly about how what legalizing drug would do. A lot of people think that legalizing drugs would put an end to all of the turmoil with smuggling and the underground market for drug. However the author of this particular article thinks otherwise. Everyone knows Michael Jackson died from some sort of prescription drug as well as Amy Winehouse and most recently Whitney Houston. The author of this article does not think that legalizing drug would cause crime with drug to decrease because look at what happens with the use and abuse of legal drugs because of legal drug we have lost three of the greatest musicians ever. The opinion that the author basically gives is that Drug will always be abused so by making them legal your just making it easier for people to abuse them however if you keep them illegal people have a harder time getting them therefore less abuse of legal drug like prescription medicine can occur. The author has a valid point indeed however his thinking is kind of one track. Legalizing drugs wont prevent abuse with a few people but what about the millions of people that need these drug to live their lives, what about the people that need the drugs to be mobile, what about your grandparents that need these drug to stay healthy. I say for about every person that abuses these drug there are about forty- thousand people that don't. So even though this author has a very valid point I feel like you can't just think about one side of the situation when writing an article like this. You can not have a one track mind because in this situation it is not fair to stop making drugs legal because of the couple famous people that have a ton of money and are able to abuse the drugs, when there are a lot of poor people that actually need these drugs and are getting the minimum amount if any at all.


Bennett, William J. "Legalizing Drug Won't Prevent Abuse." Cnn. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/opinion/
     bennett-whitney-drugs/index.html?hpt=ju_t2>.