Thursday, October 18, 2012

Issues with copyright


The topic of plagiarism and copyright violations must be one of the most discussed topics when somebody speaks about the internet, and by being a moral and ethical problem it has no proper solution, because let’s be honest, as an ethics professor once told me. “Ethics has been debated since ancient Greece (almost 22 centuries) and it can’t find a definition for what is good, if ethics can’t define what is good, what makes you think we can define what is wrong…” Defining is something is wrong is a matter of moral, but I don’t want to bore you remembering my classes of ethics and philosophy, the topic here is copyright and plagiarism.

I mentioned it is a matter of ethics and morals, because the information is there, ready to be downloaded, it is up to you and your judgment to obtain it. One of the most controversial topics associated with copyright is music and the napster problem a few years ago. Musicians were complaining about them losing money because people were not buying their records anymore, but still you find pictures like this ion the internet ¬¬ Musicians may be losing a small percentage of the earnings of the record but they won’t be having money issues. I remember somebody comparing napster with Robin Hood, stealing from the rich in order to share with the poor, I think this is wexaggerated but it has certain point, why spend money in a record that is expensive if you just want to hear one piece? At the end napster had to be put down, but still people found a way to get music with no copyright until iTunes came and stop this in great amount, because it allows the users to get the music with no copyright violation.

The other main issue with internet is plagiarism and this is a little bit more delicate, because you’re pretending somebody else work is yours and that is in fact an insult to the creator, because one doesn’t know how many effort he/she put while writing this paper, the desperation, the sleepless nights and a very small payment this creator may have is to be recognized for the work done.  I’ve been there: I and my teammates received a notification that somebody tried to use one of our papers in other class (our work was in the database of my old college and our paper was published there) we had to go face to face with these other students and I told them that, not mad or angry, but dammit kids we stayed awake for two days finishing this project for somebody else using it without recognizing our effort.
The biggest issue is that we are barely aware of the existence of copyright, which is why we constantly avoid it, you learn the complexity of it when you are in college and by that time is too late to kill old habits. Thisvideo relates perfectly how new generations are dealing with copyright, and include myself in this new generation.
  

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