WEEK 5 EOC: Changes with Internet law.

                How has the internet changed legal issues?

Well, a great example is the entire concept of “Piracy”. For those who don’t know, Piracy is when you download a product, such as a movie or song, without buying it. You don’t have a license to that product. A problem occurs when someone who DID license the product, decides to share it online, with a mass number of people. Many of whom the user doesn’t know, and probably never will.

Now, Piracy has been dealt with over the years, companies and artists are trying to make their copyrights harder and harder to steal or upload. Yet it can still happen. Because just as quickly as the new protections come out, so do those who know how to get around it. 

Piracy has been made illegal in the United States, however the problem occurs, how do we know someone took something? Well, We can track the I.P. Addresses of those whom download a product. Which will track them down to the location of the router the device used was connected to. But here, a new issue occurs. Not everyone who owns a wireless modem knows how to set protection on themselves from this issue. People can connect to a modem, owned by someone else, and illegally download products. Yet at this point, as soon as they disconnect, they can’t be found, and have made off with the product.

The Supreme Court has tried to make Piracy harder with the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. However, if you looked closely at the bill, SOPA wasn’t exactly the best idea. You would never actually need to appear in court.

                “Perhaps the most galling thing about SOPA in its original construction is that it let IP owners take these actions without a single court appearance or judicial sign-off. All it required was a single letter claiming a "good faith belief" that the target site has infringed on its content.”

Another problem this makes, is it holds the sites that are basically run by users, (facebook, youtube, tumblr, blogger, etc…) accountable for anything their users submit as a “status, tweet, or comment”.

Did you know that a fine for an illegally downloaded song can be as much as $220,000? One case actually ended up costing someone 1.92 Million dollars. The accused had downloaded 24 tracks of music, and then was charged 80,000 for each track. That was basically one CD. And it cost the accused nearly $2,000,000.

Am I saying Piracy is good? Or that we should be allowed to do it? No. You are still stealing someone’s intellectual property. However, the laws haven’t exactly caught up to how it should be handled. And even though we have systems in place, they aren’t exactly what I’d call trustworthy.

Week 4 EOC: Copyrights.

What is the definition of a copyright?

according to Webster,

copy·right

noun \-ˌrīt\

: the legal right to be the only one to reproduce, publish, and sell a book, musical recording, etc., for a certain period of time.

The next question, was "When is a copyright made?"

Some will tell you, "at the point of creation", but what qualifies as "creation"?

A photographer takes a photograph, and then they own that picture, BUT they go in and alter it before releasing it to the public. In this case, creation would be "upon release".

However, if this same photographer, does not claim the work to be theirs, with the copyright symbol, © and their name, and someone else takes their work and monetizes it, you're not actually breaking the law. Weird isn't it? Especially with the way today's creative minds work, many of them don't even have the thought of trying to protect their work in this way. Many young artists are simply creating their own works, without trying to protect it. Such is the case with many young Deviant Art users.

A copyright is a very complex thing, it is created instantly, yet if the work is unclaimed by the original creator, anyone can monetize their idea, or work. Now, you could hit them with a "Cease and Desist" order. but, if you, and they continue to monetize your work, it can lead to a court case.

I know I'll be utilizing this information to help protect myself from here on. Especially since I know a few people dealing with these issues right now. Some of the Deviant users I mentioned earlier, one of which is having her work stolen, as well as the person starting to claim they are her. Crazy world huh?

Week 3 EOC: Erin Brockovich

To be continued.

Week 2 EOC: Supreme Court

Cline v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice is poised to be one of this term’s “sleeper hits.” On the surface, it appears to be a rather technical question about legal requirements imposed on doctors when prescribing drugs “off-label,” but Cline actually could be of huge significance: the Supreme Court could re-visit and possibly overturn the constitutional framework in place under Casey that controls when, how, and to what extent the state can regulate women’s access to abortion.

http://law.unh.edu/events/2013/10/the-hot-cases-before-the-u.s.-supreme-court-this-term

Prescribing “off-label” drugs seems like an actual issue. When I think of the name “off-label” I think of something illegal, or something bad. It reminds me of when people buy over the counter drugs, take them home, and make some weird cocktail that sends them into some drug induced stupor.

However in this case it seems to mean they are just giving out the medication used for abortions without sending women through some kind of hoop jumping system?

They bring up the case, Planned Parenthood VS Casey, in which the Supreme Court found abortion constitutional. That it was a woman’s right to choose this for herself.

All that aside, I do not understand how this is being brought up time and time again. A woman’s body is her own, and yet a seeming majority or those opposed to this seem to be male. People who will never have the personal experience of carrying a child, or losing one in this manner.

Some women abuse this right, yes, but that is still their choice. Others find it immoral, okay, that’s their belief, they are entitled to that. What you are not entitled to, is forcing others to follow your moral standpoint.

Week 1 EOC: My voice

Since I was a kid, I loved visual effects in film. So it should not be a surprise that I have grown into that field as a profession. Movies, Games, TV, Websites, and so on all use visual effects constantly. So being in this line of work allows me to go where I please. Quite possibly the most important part of the job to me, is that it does not feel like work, but fun. Because when you have fun while you work, are you really working? This does not mean I would slack off, quite the opposite. Having fun on the job just means you are passionate about what you do, and love your field. That is why I am where I am, why I do what I do. I am a professional, I worked hard to get where I am, and will continue to do so moving forward. But there is no reason that a job cannot be fun right? Having the passion that I do for my field is part of makes me a professional, and what makes me a hard worker, and what lets me have fun on the job. Work hard, play hard, do the job, and have fun. Visual Effects, does nothing but continues to grow, to look more real, eventually, you may be unable to tell the difference between an effect and a real thing. And I could not be happier to be a part of it.