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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