Hudzon14's Weblog

Youtube vs. Viacom

hudzon14 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:33:37 +0000

I was reading about a few cases about Youtube lawsuits and the biggest lawsuit was by Viacom for $1 billion for copyright infringement that dealt with clips that were uploaded. Youtube is being accused of “massive intentional copyright infringement” and this is a statement that Viacom has released:

There is no question that YouTube and Google are continuing to take the fruit of our efforts without permission and destroying enormous value in the process. This is value that rightfully belongs to the writers, directors and talent who create it and companies like Viacom that have invested to make possible this innovation and creativity.

I mean I knew that Youtube would be vulnerable for getting sued but my question is why don’t they go after the users on the site. Music companies are suing people for file sharing but Youtube users are not and in retrospect they are sharing files as well. I’m not saying I want anyone to be sued because I love Youtube but it is kind of a confusing scenario. On one end Users are being sued and the other the company is being sued. Any thoughts??

News article on Copyrighting

hudzon14 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:23:47 +0000

After our class discussions on copyright disputes I did a bit of searching to find some legal cases that have come up recently. One I found was just another case where a woman was sued for filing sharing a bunch of music downloads. What I found interesting is that this one music company is suing this lady for primarily 24 songs at $9,000 per song which is right around $220,000. I think that is a pretty steep amount of money for only 24 songs. They are trying to make an example of this women but this amount of money just seems absurd. Also, I feel that this kind of lawsuit will probably have minimal effects on the total population that downloads music. Some lawyers and other experts in the article talk about trying to get the copyright laws changed because most of these laws are for pirates and DVD/CD bootleggers. I agree with their statements because the laws of copyright don’t distinguish between a normal person who listens to a few songs and a music pirate. Also, I feel that the software that people illegally download songs on should be responsible too because without these there would be no file sharing.

I remember my freshman year when I was like one of 30 people who was caught on campus for file sharing. I had to go into the dean of students and talk with someone about it and they shut my internet off in my dorm room for about a month. I was not happy especially because it was over 2 songs that people downloaded off my files. I didn’t file share in the dorms after that. I still download songs occasionally but not as much and this is not because I’m afraid of being caught again but more for the fact that all of these file sharing programs have given me many viruses.

The link to this article is below:

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9791383-7.html

Freedom of Speech

hudzon14 — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:59:47 +0000

A couple of classes ago we talked about the freedom of speech and incorporated them with libraries. I think free speech is probably one of the most important Amendments not only because it is the first but it represents everything our country was founded for, freedom. In this sense it is only talking about your opinions and beliefs but this is one important aspect dealing with freedom. We then started talking about designated areas for free speech on certain property. I think this is a good idea so that there aren’t public speakers all over the place preaching their beliefs or whatever it is they have to say. The area should be located in a central part of the property or at least in an area that gets some traffic of people who walk through. If it is isolated from everyone then there is no point in having one because nobody will ever here what people are on these speakers or peoples minds. If UNCW designated a public speaking area I think the two best areas would be either somewhere near the clock tower or that little circular area right near the pond that is below the new Student Union. These areas would be good because these areas are centrally located on campus with a lot of students or faculty passing by.

Class Post about Google

hudzon14 — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:09:16 +0000

Today as Google offers us a variety of tools to help the average person make the internet user-friendly, I also understand that it offers some other things that may not protect your privacy online. I didn’t know that if you have a Google email account that they read all your emails you have sent and received even if the recipient doesn’t have a Gmail account. Also you can search someone’s name and their address and phone number can pop up, where then you could actual use the Google Earth program to see this person’s residence. I just think it has gone a little overboard with all of this, I know I wouldn’t want my emails to be read or to have my address pop up. I mean it definitely has benefits for a person using this site for good but then people can take advantage of the site and use Google’s resources for harmful activities. I love Google for its basic uses like search and maps but I think they could put some accessibility limits on what people can find out about you online. But then I could make this argument for a bunch of other large internet companies who most likely do the same things. My point is that with all of the internet’s benefits there are drawbacks where private information could be leaked or obtained by the wrong hands. I try to be as secure as possible but I don’t even know if that is secure enough with all of these sites obtaining information without you even realizing it.

Class Post to Project Censored

hudzon14 — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:49:25 +0000

In class when we were watching Project Censored I thought it was really interesting how this new organization worked. I like how they would choose a certain amount of news stories that seemed the most intriguing or important for the public to hear about and then publish or produce those stories as their top stories of the year. I can’t believe some of the stories they found that were not distributed through the top media corporation outlets. You would think news companies would want you to hear about these topics but then again these companies are being controlled by higher executives that might have connections or certain relationships with certain new stories that they don’t want to be distributed to the public. Project censored tries to solve this problem by finding the stories that never really made it out but can be thought of as pretty important if not more important that ones we see every day. One example I thought was crazy was the FOX news channel in Tampa that fired two reporters for trying to get the milk producer story to air on television. I had heard about this incident before in other movie called “The Corporation” where FOX must have had ties with the certain drug that was given to cows so they didn’t want to story to be aired. It just makes you think about what other important new stories are being kept from the public.

Banned Books news topic

hudzon14 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:13:00 +0000

A couple of classes ago we talked about banned and challenged books in the school systems. I decided to look up a few articles regarding the subject because it was of interest. What I found was that since the ALA (American Library Association) was formed that there is more than one book a day challenged in U.S. schools and libraries. Since 1990 there have been over 8,700 challenges to books. For 25 years there has been banned book week and this shows us all in communities that people have the freedom to read whatever they want. During this week they celebrate the freedom to read and set up exhibits about books that have been previously banned or challenged. I think that banned book week is great because it shows us all what America is about freedom. I don’t think books should be banned from libraries or schools because everyone deserves to read what they want. If a parent doesn’t want their kid to read something then supervise their library visits or set some guidlines. I think it is absurd to try and censor libraries through banning books because one person’s idea of an inappropriate book might be a resource for someone else. Libraries are open to the public just as their books are.

http://www.ala.org/ala/pio/presscentera/piopresskits/bannedbooksweek2006/bbwpk06.htm

News article on Plagiarism

hudzon14 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:33:13 +0000

For a few classes we discussed the issue of plagiarism and all the ways schools are trying to catch and prevent plagiarism. From Turnitin.com to MLA style citations people are trying to decrease the amount of plagiarism that goes on to. I stumbled upon this news event earlier this spring when it occurred but I thought it fit quite perfect with our class topic. Last April four high school students were caught plagiarizing by their schools through turnitin.com. The students ended up fighting back and trying to sue the company for copyright infringements upon their own works. Their argument was that the company is profiting by copying students papers onto their servers because they are granted permission. The only reason students give permission is because the schools force them to sign a waiver that allows tunitin.com to do this. The company is being accused of unfair use primarily because it is a commercial business. I find this whole incident pretty ironic because turnitin.com has been using archives to catch students who plagiarize but now they are in turn being sued for copyright infringements which is in another sense basically plagiarism. I bet they never saw that coming to them. I couldn’t find out what happened in court but if the students won they could have received around $900,000 in damages. For more on the incident here are a few links:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198702230

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032802038.html

4th Class Post

hudzon14 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:07:27 +0000

The class where we were talking about banned books and authors was really interesting to me. The term Ghost Writer came up where authors write a bunch of books under a certain author’s name which hopefully results in more books to sell. I had never heard about this before and then I thought it was really interesting that this happened but I guess it makes sense. No one is going to buy books of a series or something that don’t follow the same author. It is kind of like movie series, no one wants to go see a sequel or third movie that doesn’t have the original actors/actresses in them. The Goosebumps series came under discussion about how they had ghost writers writing for them. Does this mean that there was no R.L. Stine and he was just a made up author or did R.L. actually write a good amount of the books? Also, I didn’t know if that was the case for a bunch of other books with ghost writers. I hope these authors get a substantial amount of money because they aren’t getting any recognition for their works. I wonder if ghost writers just stay in the field of writing books or novels under a different author name or they actually break out and publish books with their real name.

3rd Class Post

hudzon14 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:26:14 +0000

Lately in class we have been using a variety of search databases and searching techniques in the library catalog. Most of my research papers have been completed during my earlier years at UNCW and I had always had trouble finding good book sources from the library. This was probably because I was never really taught the right ways to search and use the library resources to my full advantage. Most of my sources would come from internet articles and Encyclopedias. Now I know how to search different databases like EBSCO for articles in journals that may pertain to a certain field. Also, I know a variety of techniques on how to search books through the catalog like using * to broaden my search and also to use the main subject heading given by a library to return more search results. My research papers might not be complete throughout my lifetime but I feel as a senior now, it would have helped if new students were required to take this class on how to search and use library resources. The tours didn’t really help because they were so short lived.

Reaction to FOX News editing Wikipedia

hudzon14 — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:53:54 +0000

My first news story blog pertains to an article about Fox News editing Wikipedia to remove biographies about certain people employed by Fox News. This ties in with how there have been looking at numerous accounts of editing Wikipedia to make certain people or organizations look better. This doesn’t really involve inaccuracy in the media but it makes me think that if Fox does this then they can definitely change around stories in the news even if it proves to be inaccurate. Fox was basically editing bios and reviews about certain shows to look better to people who search Wikipedia frequently. I have never really been a big fan of Fox News because of their reporting styles but now after reading this I dislike them even more and will probably never watch a Fox news report unless forced. I hope other news stations haven’t done this in the past either because that might make me second guess the major news stations in general. If anyone wants to read to link and see what Fox was changing on Wikipedia it is as follows:

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2007/08/14/fox-news-changes-wikipedia-to-smear-rivals-olbermann-and-franken-comprehensive-list-of-changes