EOTO - Reaction 1

Jongrak Lee did an excellent job at highlighting important points about copyright infringement in his Each One Teach One assignment. I think, in many cases, people are unaware of the monetary strains infringement can create. As well, you don't hear much about the violation of due process and privacy rights when governmental entities crack down on individuals who commit copyright infringement.

I would like to offer this in conjunction to the information Jongrak provided: Copyright infringement is not just about breaking a law: it stifles progress and creativity and adds a sense of unwillingness by people to create new works of art, music, literature, reserach etc. Therefore, it directly effects the greater good of a society. Without the arts and sciences, a society cannot flourish or be competitive in a global sense.

I think most people are aware about the issues of downloading music and sharing music files because of all the spin involving Napster, Metallica and the RIAA. The fact is that this "general awareness" is not enough to protect both the authors/creators of copyrighted material or the people who unknowingly break copyright laws. I agree with Jongrak in that there needs to be more of an outreach and some sort of public education campaign to protect all involved parties.

As Jongrak pointed out, the latest trend in legal action has been to monitor individual users instead of the centralized services. This seems to be a big issue for colleges and universities because of the fact that students often use their institution's main network. What type of concerns does this raise for institutions when a student is involved in a legal investigation? Could the institution be held accountable for a student's action on a campus-wide network? Just something to think about.