Whilst last week’s readings discussed
the positive and negative aspects on our attention in the transition into a
technological world, this week’s blog topic is equally as controversial, as it
discusses piracy within the publishing world, and media world in general.
Piracy is an important topic leading into our week of debating because it is
not a clear cut, wrong and right issue. Because we are living in a world rich
in information and communication, it is extremely hard to monitor internet
content, when so many people are accessing online material and producing their
own (Madrigal, 2012).
The SOPA (2012)
(the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’) and ACTA (2012) the ‘Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) dealt
with issues regarding the protection of intellectual property (ideas) of
content creators, and the online distribution of this intellectual property as
well as counterfeit objects. However these legislations have sparked debate over
the decline of freedom of speech, a likening to the Chinese firewall, and a
host of other copyright legalities that could arise due to the broad nature of
SOPA and ACTA (Wikipedia, 2012). By broad language, I mean that the legislations are not specific
enough in the copyright laws that they want to uphold, and this could result in
punishment for internet users who unintentionally use other people’s work, for
well meaning internet based businesses, and other cloudy and lengthy court
processes. In this circumstance, the internet is such a massive platform, which
would make it extremely hard and time consuming to monitor, and the end result
could mean that the “bad guys” who are actually committing the copyright
infringements may never be punished, whilst the relatively innocent and unaware
users could be (Wikipedia, 2012).
The debate of piracy, censorship and privacy is further complicated when looking at case studies such as wiki leaks and the issue of online piracy, or the various social media sites and the issues of privacy. However whilst we will be covering these cases in class, I’d like to look at the incredibly frequent piracy of online audio and visual content. Whilst pirating music, movies and other types of internet based material has an extremely negative economical impact on the content creators, is it appropriate to treat the act of piracy as a serious crime, in which the users of these streaming sites are as at fault as the creators? I think that it’s such a shame that the music and film industries within America are struggling due to online piracy, but I don’t think that promoting adds that treat piracy as if it were a serious crime (like stealing a car or a handbag etc) are very effective, and I myself have been guilty of downloading ‘free’ songs online. I think that the creators of these streaming sites need to be addressed, however because the internet is such a huge platform, we have shot ourselves in the foot, so to speak, because individual liability is now so hard to monitor.
image:
Bibliograhpy:
LOLROFLMAO, 2012, <http://www.lolroflmao.com/2011/08/28/if-rap-artists-always-brag-about-hot-they-used-to-be-criminals-then-why-do-they-think-its-wrong-for-us-to-torrent-their-music/>
Madrigal, Alexis, ‘Reading the Privacy Policies You Encounter in a Year Would Take 76 Work Days, The Atlantic, 2012, < http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/03/the-national-cost-of-reading-privacy-policies-would-be-greater-than-the-gdp-of-florida/253851>
Madrigal, Alexis, ‘Reading the Privacy Policies You Encounter in a Year Would Take 76 Work Days, The Atlantic, 2012, < http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/03/the-national-cost-of-reading-privacy-policies-would-be-greater-than-the-gdp-of-florida/253851>
No comments:
Post a Comment