Daewon Shin /Intellectual property/ Tuesday 11am

           Everybody commits a crime unintentionally quite often, presumably more than he or she thinks. Some people smoke in smoke free zone, and some throws away litter in the middle of street; it happens more frequently when it comes to cyber world. When someone wants to watch a movie but has no friend to go for it with, they just download it somewhere on the Internet and enjoy it; when some people want to save some music on their MP3 player, they download them illegally instead of paying for them. Those behaviors are certainly crimes according to constitution, maybe in most countries. Then, those crimes which are the same as theft in terms of behaviors themselves, are 'actually' the same as theft? I do not think so. It is not the truth, at least, yet.

         

           It is definitely stealing copyright owners' rights to illegally download music or movies. They are supposed to get some money in return to sell their copyright. People who downloads other's work without paying for it are surely taking their right to make money. I, however, do not think it is exactly the same as theft because properties like movies or music do not disappear even though they are taken from others. It means when you download movies on the internet, you are not taking their whole properties, but kind of sharing it. It sounds ridiculous, but when you do not spread the movies or music out to make money, it is not as serious crime as theft.

           Sometimes illegal downloading even helps copyright owners make money. It is a matter of course the more people download illegally movies or music, the more famous the movies or music become, which means the behavior of illegal downloading could promote movies or music. In the current music field, composers or producers who may have copyright for the music, do not expect to make money from selling their music, but from holding concerts, or selling the image of singers who sing the song they made. It means it is not a big deal to spread their music almost free, but it is the matter to make it famous. In this point, these crimes could even help copyright owner make money.

           There, however, are some cases illegal downloading is taken the same as theft or more serious crime than that. For example, Disney never allow their animations are spread for nothing; Disney accused someone of downloading their newest animation 'Frozen' illegally. They take their intellectual property itself important, so they do not want anybody use their effort without just cost. For me, however, their mind is just bluff of someone who has enough.

           Illegal downloading cannot be the same as 'physical theft.' It does not go away even when it is spread out, most of time the copyright owner does not even know their work is stolen. Of course, copyright should be protected by law, but it is early to apply a strict rule to illegal downloading yet. People do not take it as a serious crime, and they do not even feel guilty for doing it. It is firstly necessary to change public awareness for illegal downloading, and it is the next step to regard illegal downloading as the same as 'actual' theft.

Sharon Jeon/Music Piracy- Why One Must Stand Up Against It/Tues. 11AM

Music Piracy- Why One Must Stand Up Against It

 

One of the most difficult challenges is standing up for what is right even when everyone else is not. As internet became readily available, illegal downloading and uploading of music became very popular and easy. In an effort to combat piracy, various music industries are suing file traders and the sites they download from. However, it is a challenge to track down everyone because there are thousands of people downloading everyday using various sites. Downloading illegal music is much like shoplifting a CD. This is crime and it should be prevented. I believe that penalties should be strengthened for music piracy because it is not only morally wrong, but it also affects the music industry and the legal buyers.

 

Music piracy is killing sales growth and profits for the music industry. According to RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), it is estimated that the music industries lose $4.2 billion to piracy worldwide each year. This is because the more people can get music for free, the less they will buy. As a result, the paychecks of retailers, producers, musicians, song writers and recording engineers are all affected. For artists, since it is hard for them to make money from the sale of their music, they have to look for other means to earn money like touring.

 

Legal buyers are also affected by music piracy. They have to pay more to buy original CDs since the retail price has been raised to accommodate for the lower sales. This also affects those legal music buyers that purchase online. Record companies installed DMR - a technology that limits what people can do with the music that they buy - to prevent copying and file sharing in the songs they sell. Therefore, even if someone pays full price for a track, they might be limited in where and how much they can play that track. Music piracy should be banned because it is not right for the legal buyers to pay more money to make up for others illegal actions.

 

Some argue that people who listen to music are mostly teens and college students, a group that do not have a steady income. As a result, if they had to buy original CDs for every artist, they would not listen to music as much since the CDs are expensive. However, music piracy is downloading music without paying. It is like wearing a dress from a store and going out with paying for it. This is morally wrong because it is stealing. For low income consumers, there are many music applications for mobile phones these days where they can download music legally for a minimal price. Therefore students can still enjoy music at a low cost.

 

With more and more people pirating music, CDs are selling less; consequently, their retail price has been raised, making the legal buyers pay more to accommodate for the lower sales. Despite how easy downloading is, and despite the fact that so many people do it, the bottom line is that sharing music without copyright permission is illegal. It is also morally wrong because it is using someone else's property without their permission. Therefore, music piracy should be banned and efforts must be taken to combat it.

Kim Seung Hyun /intellectual property/ Tuesday 11am

The Importance of Intellectual Property Rights

 

Without a doubt, the right to property is one of the most fundamental human rights and it assures one to have a general and exclusive entitlement to his private property. The right applies to not only tangible property but also intangible property such as writing, software, and music. In today's world overflowing with information and intellectual property, it is essential to protect one's right to his intellectual creation.

 

First and foremost, intellectual property rights promote new and further intellectual creation. Writers and musicians put efforts to create their works and corporations invest time and money to develop new technologies. However, were it not for intellectual property rights, such works and technologies would not be protected against copying and anyone can claim rights to other's creation. This would make the original creators' efforts and investments meaningless and discourage them from creating further intellectual property.

 

Some may argue that an individual or a corporation should not have an exclusive entitlement to intellectual property. One of their ideas is that unlike material property, intellectual property is not scarce. Thus, they argue, sharing it does not deprive the creator of his property but instead leads to public owning more property. Nevertheless, their argument is invalid. In a short term, people may seem to benefit from sharing intellectual property without giving acknowledgements to creators. However, as mentioned above, soon creators will be discouraged from creating at all and thus there will not be new intellectual property to share.

 

We live surrounded by others intellectual creations and yet we often do not acknowledge their efforts and investments to create them. We may benefit by illegal-downloading and piracy but, in fact, in a long run, it leads to a world without incentives to create any intellectual property. Thus, the protection of intellectual property rights is vital.

Yujin Lee/ Intellectual Property / Tuesday 11a.m.

 

Copyright: A Supporter of Creators

 

 

 Yujin Lee

 

 

We are living in a world full of intellectual property. Songs we listen to everyday, movies we watch on weekend, books we read all the times are all part of intellectual property. It is so common and widely spread that we cannot imagine life detached from it. And since intellectual property is a part of our lives, a problem of violation cannot be neglected. One form of system to prevent this violation is copyright. The purpose of copyright is to protect the exclusive privilege related to works for the people who created them. During my research, I have read several arguments introduced in copyleft movement which goes against to this copyright and I thought some of them are quite reasonable. However, I still insist that copyright should be protected in order to support rights of creators related to their creations.

 

 

First of all, copyright should be maintained to ensure right rewards for creators who made a lot of efforts to generate their works. For instance, to make a movie it takes enormous time and cost ; a scriptwriter, a director, actors and actress as well as many staffs should devote to play their roles to make one fine movie. However, since the movie is duplicable, anyone can get a free access throughout internet if not properly protected by copyright law. Also it can be possible that some other people make unfair profit with the movie. It is true that getting better access to creations is a very important aspect. Yet, I believe it is even more important to give right rewards to the people who deserve them.

 

 

Also, I think copyright can promote motives to make creative works. To have a copyright, the work should be creative and ingenious. I agree that imitation makes creation and every great idea has something to do with other ideas that existed beforehand. For example, even Shakespeare referred to others works to create his own work and it is true that he owes to many other creations. However, what makes him great is the originality and creativity he showed throughout his fine works. And I believe copyright is a device to value this originality that creator produced. In order to have copyright which provides exclusive privilege generated from the originality, people try hard to differentiate their works from others as a result.

 

 

Therefore, based on what I mentioned above, copyright law should be kept considering the quality aspect of creations. Some people say that allowing free access to creations and information without concerns of violating copyright will let people utilize and regenerate new works freely. And I agree that copyright may pose some limits to active interactions between people related to their works. However, if there is no copyright, creators cannot expect exclusive right which can be a form of rewards to their hard works. Also motive to produce creative works will diminish since they cannot achieve proper recognition derived from the originality. As a consequence, although a lot of works can be created under conditions of free access to the creations, it is highly possible that they have low quality since they can no longer become enough compensation for creators who should devote long time and cost to produce one ingenious work.

 

 

I understand that there are still many problems and side effects of copyright. I heard that there is some kind of structural problem which makes it hard for creators to get their just right. And many legal disputes caused by abuse of copyright can also be easily found. But still, I believe copyright should be maintained since it is a form of reward and motive that can promote further works with better quality. Without doubt, It is true that the problems lie within copyright should not be neglected and managed in a proper way. And by doing so, I think we can develop copyright system in a better way that can provide a good environment for creators in our future.

 

201103628 Hana Choi/IP/Tue 11a.m.

201103628 Hana Choi

Protect People's Ideas

As time goes by many laws for IP come out to protect people's ideas.
There should be more laws for it. Inventors' thoughts must be
protected by laws.
First, IP is unique ideas of inventors or creators. They invest so
much money, efforts and even they put their lives on it to achieve the
things. So IP is the least compensation or rewards for their
endurance. Laws are the only things which can guarantee people's
rights who invented things.
Moreover as the world is globalized, how much each country gets money
can be different depends on IP. Like the continuing conflicts between
Apple and Samsung, they have been prolonging their suit such a long
time is the nation's wealth depends on their idea. Both Apple and
Samsung are the biggest companies in the mobile technology field. So
the influence they give on the U.S and Korea respectively is really
big. The laws between countries will be the best method to avoid any
conflicts in borderless world in the future.
Some people say if IP is too strictly protected by laws, no more
things can be created. They say creation is from modifying the
original things. But if people want to do that, they should do it
under the permission. If somebody intends to earn more money while he
is realizing he is using others' idea, it is stealing. Futhermore I
think things are rather developed than came out from nothing. The
world is getting better based on what we already have. So when people
develop their ideas freely under the original developer's permission.
Futhermore their new ideas also need to be protected by laws.
Like I said people's efforts must be paid fairly in the wide world.
Even though there are already many people care about protecting IP and
the world is becoming sensitive about that, there are not many tools
for that. So it is necessary to make more ways to protect IP.

Xeniya Pak/Copyright laws should be applied in the Internet world/Tuesday 11am

Pak Xeniya

Copyright laws should be applied in the Internet world.

Today everyone can easily download book, music or movie from the internet. It is really convenient to receive some file from the internet rather than go to the shop and pay for it. Thus there are two sides in the internet world: pirates, who illegally own someone's property and people, who use those property. However, people download files not knowing that they violate copyright laws. Because people violate copyrights through downloading and sharing files off the internet, I believe that copyright laws should be strictly applied.

In my opinion, copyright law helps to prevent authors from allowing people to download files illegally. Pirates just give people things that they want to receive: the same product but much cheaper than the original. Imagine the situation that you are a programmer, who spent tremendous amount of time in order to create unique and useful program but someone received this program for free and spread it in the internet earning money. Today there are many people, who want to steal product and make it as their own property. Therefore, to guarantee the originality and prevent authors from illegally ownership a copyright law should be applied.  

 Copyright law is the only way to prevent authors from loss money. People who download files from the internet don't realize the financial loss. Some people may argue that poor people cannot afford to buy legal version of product which is expensive. I understand that those people also want to enjoy listening to music, using convenient program or watching movie, but this is not justify copying or sharing files off the internet. If they receive illegal copy of movie or music, they may become those pirates who steal original files and earn money on it. This action can cause the loss of significant amount of income. Even though copyright violation doesn't cause immediate financial loss; it can still be costly to the authors. Therefore, it is important to prevent them from losing money by applying copyright law.

Many authors face unpleasant situations which lead them to a damaged reputation. For instance, there are people who try to own someone's product and impertinently claim that they are the creators of that product; as a result it causes lawsuit, where original author has to prove his copyrights. However, some people say that those people help authors to promote their products and make it popular even though it may put authors to a damaged reputation, but trial to own property violates authors' rights and put them in a difficult situation. That is why a copyright law is the only option to prevent authors from uneasy situations.

In conclusion, I think that people should take into the importance of copyrights and the consequences that can negatively affect authors. There is no doubt that the illegal situation is not good now, since people neglect laws. Unless copyright law will be applied, the original products will be spread illegally, the authors will lose money and be in an unpleasant situation.

--
Kseniya Pak

Jae Hyun Park/intellectual property/Tues11am

Do we deserve to be criminals?

 

Everyday millions of people around the world commit a crime. They download and share music online without permission of the artist. Music is an intellectual property protected by law but almost no one is convicted for illegal music downloading and sharing as it is so rampant that the government cannot throw everyone in jail. That being said, should we be considered criminals for doing something that cannot be controlled even by law enforcement? Unless the government changes the structure of the music download market, monitors everyone's personal life and finds a way to promote musicians other than the internet, the answer is no.

 

The structure of the music download market is organized in a way that generates profit for businesses rather than musicians. Music distribution companies take a significant portion of revenue from an artist's music on the ground that they own the right to distribute the recordings. The concept of intellectual property is for the benefit of the creator. In the case of music, the creator is the artist. However, the artist gets the smallest piece of the pie when his or her music makes sales. In other words, when you pay $9.99 to listen to Maroon 5's newest album on iTunes, it is Apple who becomes rich at the end of the day not your favorite musician. Hence, there is no point in downloading tracks off the internet legally when our money does not even support artists.

 

There are so many means to attain a music file that the government will have to install a surveillance camera on every house to stop music piracy. Let's assume your friend purchased Ne-Yo's album that you wanted and decided to share it with you. Your friend could use the internet to upload the tracks on the blog or send them directly to your email. Another alternative might be burning a copy of the CD or simply using your phone to record the songs. With countless ways of copying music available, could the government monitor every act of crime we commit? Even if they regulate the internet to end illegal music piracy, other technological devices will always enable us to continue.

 

The world famous singer Psy would not be where he is today if it were not for the internet. It helped Psy's Gangnam Style attract worldwide attention and made Psy a super star in no time. Although downloading and sharing music online cannot be the source of revenue for musicians, it can certainly be the source of popularity. In fact, popularity can be the source of revenue as musicians can hold concerts, attend various events and even expand their career into acting. Simply put, artists can secure a solid foothold in the music industry at the cost of providing music for free.

 

There is no doubt that music piracy is getting out of hand. However, it is not the main cause of musicians suffering from financial difficulties. Besides, the copyright law failed to impose strict regulations from the start and set things right. With the law on intellectual property stuck in a catch-22 situation, we need to question whether people deserve to be called criminals for online music downloading and sharing. Making this act a crime will not make a difference due to the unfair structure of the music download market, plenty of ways to make copies and the benefit of the internet.