This lecture revolved around the idea of freedom vs control. It dealt with the issue of copyright throughout the inet. Dave described copyright as being the notion that it protects creative peoples work.
To be honest the issue of copyright has never been an issue for me on the inet for i feel that i do not have any intention to copyright anybodies creative work. However, i am aware that this is an everyday issue that i believe needs to be resolved.
Laurence Lessig, a politician, promotes open source software and open publishing. He claims that the two should be freely available for people to download and manipulate as long as this is then uploaded for free download, again for people to manipulate further etc. This therefore is republication relay - passing on your products so that they can then pass it on also. (copyleft) Although i think Lessig does have a point, it can be argued that it will never work.
In addition, i was fascinated by a girl called Brittany from the site p2p. I think that this site is fantastic. She described that she is in college and that the Big 4's RIAA wants $8,100 of her because she has downloaded music. The Big 4 are Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but run by a Canadian). This site was describing how she downloaded one or two songs and is now being branded a criminal for it. If you want to read the rest of this story http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18413. It really was interesting to know that a girl practically the same age as us, is under threat by these big companies. Once you have read the story, who do you agree with the most? The RIAA, or Brittany?
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I have just read the link you sent about Brittanys story. It is hard to see whose right and whose wrong because technically she is wrong for downloading even one song.
ReplyDeleteHowever, how is it fair that the RIAA are hammering in on her and not bothering about the thousands of people who download hundreds of songs/albums illegally everyday?
Surely they should clamp down on everyone?
Regarding your comment on the copyright issue, I agree that to us it is not an issue, I dont see myself putting anything on the internet that I wish to keep for myself. I like the idea of the internet being free for all, but is this realisitc?
Brittanys story is a tough one because they are using her as a scapegoat to try and scare other people about downloading illegally. but these companies would never be able to prosecute all the people who do download illegally. The big companies are trying to use the laws which are used in society and mirror them on the internet, but because they can't have the dominance online like they do in society everyone will not get caught!
ReplyDeleteyeah but to me when reading in i was shocked in how they were labelling her, i completely understand her issue with the fact that sometimes she does not want to go out and purchase a cd just to bring it home and finds she does not like it. however at the same time its harsh because downloading is illegal. i think it is a tuff one.
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