Week5: Online Theft- Erkan's thoughts

Years ago, there was the NAPSTER case; years of battling between the recording industry and the Internet users who wanted to share their music files with other Internet users. In the end, the recording industry won on behalf of protecting the intellectual property of singers and song-writers and the Napster was banned from distributing music. Today, a similar battle is taking place between the movie industry and those who want to share their video files and movies with the other people online. I understand both the movie and recording industries' argument that they want to protect the professionals' artistic rights and the financial profits they expect to make from what they produce. In this regard, I support the court's decision to close down the NAPSTER because that company was trying to make profit without creating anything, putting any effort but rather by simply distributing copyrighted material without authorization.
However, I don't think the law should intervene in individual cases, like charging individuals with crime of stealing music or movies. Because I believe if a person can access a website and manage to download a couple of mp3s and a movie, and distribute it to a few friends for entertainment, this should not be considered as crime. I think it is the music or recording companies' responsibility, or the responsibility of the website that hosts the product, to protect these material against individual access. If a person can finds a way to access the material even when it is protected by some online security measurement, I think this too should not be considered as crime, because that shows the person's skill to use technology to bypass the security.
On the other hand, if those who break the security codes and download movies and copy and distribute them in lare quantities to make profit out of it, this must be considered crime, as this would be stealing intellectual property for making illegal profit. Such people should definetely be charged with crime for doing it and must be sentenced.
To sum, the law for Internet theft should be enforced to those who intend to gain financial (or any other kind of) profit by stealing others' intellectual property and in doing so cause financial loss to other people.

Deniz K, and Rabia
Thanks again for contributing to the discussion on this matter. I still expect the others to state their opinions on the blogger...

Week5: ONLINE THEFT text- KEY

ONLINE MOVIE THEFT

For the first time a Japanese court has found a man guilty of piracy and sentenced him to a year in jail. Yoshihiro Inoue, 42, downloaded movies off the Internet. He made copies of the movie A Beautiful Mind, and then shared them with others. This is considered a crime in the U.S., Japan, and most other countries in the world. Inoue's case sets a precedent for anyone who distributes films illegally. His crime was stealing intellectual property. This kind of property, which is someone's creative invention, is protected by copyright law.

Today over eighty nations have copyright laws. These laws protect filmmakers, writers, photographers, and other innovative professionals. People who download and copy these works often do not understand or care about the financial loss to many of these artists. To protect artistic works within the U.S., the Copyright Act of 1976 was created. Most recently the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 was signed into law. In addition, there are treaties and conventions to protect intellectual property between nations. One of these is the Universal Copyright Convention. Without these laws, piracy would go unchecked. Some of the many types of piracy include making DVDs, duplicating VHS tapes, using hand-held video cameras in movie theaters, and even receiving satellite signals without authorization.

Yoshiro Inoue is not the first person to steal intellectual property, but he is the first to be charged with a crime for doing it. The movie industry in Hollywood and Asia are particularly interested in this case because they have a lot to lose. For a number of years the recording industry has pursued anyone downloading music from the Internet. Now the movie industry is following their example because piracy costs them almost $3 billion each year.

A major film costs about $80 million—$55 million to make and $27 million to advertise and market. Although many people believe that the film industry makes enormous profits, almost half of all films do not earn enough money to pay back their investors. If people continue to download movies off the Internet instead of paying to see them, the movie industry will have trouble surviving.

LFP of the text:

2k types: advertise_[1] billion_[1] cameras_[1] copies_[1] copy_[1] crime_[3] earn_[1] entertainment_[1] film_[2] films_[2] guilty_[1] invention_[1] lot_[1] photographers_[1] signals_[1] steal_[1] stealing_[1] universal_[1]

AWL types: convention_[1] conventions_[1] created_[1] creative_[1] enormous_[1] financial_[1] illegally_[1] innovative_[1] investors_[1] major_[1] precedent_[1] professionals_[1] pursued_[1] surviving_[1] tapes_[1]

OFF types: authorization_[1] copyright_[5] distributes_[1] download_[2] downloaded_[1] downloading_[1] duplicating_[1] dvds_[1] filmmakers_[1] hollywood_[1] intellectual_[3] internet_[3] jail_[1] japan_[1] japanese_[1] movie_[5] movies_[2] piracy_[4] satellite_[1] sentenced_[1] theaters_[1] treaties_[1] unchecked_[1] vhs_[1] video_[1]

Task. Brainstorming Vocabulary for Speaking & Writing

Use the chart below to categorize the words and phrases in the text that you think mightt be useful when talking/ writing about the topic.

law	property	computers and technology
- legal - break the rules - commit a crime - find (someone) guilty of (a crime) - charge (someone) with the crime of ... - use punishment against .. - enforce the law - break the law - with/without authorization - court - case - send/ go to jail - fine - sentence (someone) with (amount of time) in jail/ prison - treaties and conventions - sign into law	- own a copyright - possession - steal/ protect intellectual property - financial - investor - (v/n) copyright - make / lose profit - ... is protected by law	- download - share files - distribute files - program - download off/from the - Internet - invention - innovative - duplicate/ copy - satellite

Week5: Online theft- Rabia's thoughts

If someone is sentenced to three or four years ın prison, can it be a good solution to make him enforce the law [people obey the law or abide by the law; the authorities or governments enforce the law]? I absolutely disagree with such punıshments. Nowadays, pıracy ıs a common crıme commıted by so many people. When you put one of them ın jaıl, pıracy won't come to an end , by all means. Because people are addıcted to break the laws, they don't even see what they've done as a crıme. Most people thınk that they're not guılty of pıracy Accordıng to them ıt ıs only sharıng fıles not stealıng Some of them also belıeve that they are forced to steal Sınce the prıces of orıgınal copıes of the artıstıc works are not affordable, they download them altough ıt ıs ıllegal On the other hand people are today law unto theırselves [?]Therefore ıt ıs more dıffıcult to punısh them ın a way that wıll change them completely I dısagree wıth the ımprısonment and death penalty But I am not supportıng the ones who take the law ınto theır own hands It ıs so bad actually I am on the opınıon of fınıng them for theır guılt In my opınıon ıf we do away wıth death penalty, the number of law abıdıng cıtızens wıll dramatıcally ınrease [how? Would it tempt people to break the law if we abolish imprisonment and capital punishment??]

Rabia,
Thanks for sharing what you think about the issue with us. Nice to see you actually used some of the vocabulary we highlighted in the text (the ones that I highlighted with blue); using the words in context is the best way to learn and retain them...
p.s. Be careful with punctuation and turkish /english characters!..
RABIA KARAKURT
070180

Week5: Online theft- Deniz K's thoughts

In today's world, internet is very useful and necessary for our lifes [sp]. We use it in every part of our lifes [sp]. But recently most [let us not overgeneralize; use some] people [have] start[ed] to utilize it for their own benefits such as online theft. This means downloading from the internet without paying anything and taking permission [let us use without authorization]. Famous people,who are interested in art, music and movies, spend millions of dolars for these things and they make so much effort [to create these works].They hope to earn money, but we connect the internet and download their works. It is not ethical. We commit a crime. Should we sentence to a jail [use passive here, or add an object, like should we send those people who committed online theft to jail]? In my opinion for this crime sentencing jail [grammatically incomplete; it should be sentencing people for (a period of time) in jail. You can also use charging people of a serious crime, or sending these people to jail] is too harshly but of course people who commit a crime should not stay[go away] without fine. They should pay a fine. But if we really want to solve this problem, it must be blocked by the head of the internet program creaters.

Thanks Deniz for sharing your thoughts on the issue; good argument....

Week5: New Focus- Argumentative Issues

Dear all,

The text on the right is the first reading text in your Effective Academic Writing Book, p. 89.

I've written a small vocabulary task for you. I scanned the text and processed it on the LEXTUTOR website to see its lexical frequency profile (LFP). You will see the LFP at the bottom of the text.

When speakin/ writing about a topic, it is important to have the related vocabulary and terms about that particular topic. This activity will help you to highlight the topic-related vocabulary in the text, so that when you want to express your views about the topic, you will be able to use the necessary vocabulary.

Please download the text, get a printout, and do the task. The task requires you to scan the LFP first and then the text and locate the words and phrases that could go under each category. You can use the last category to add in the other related words you think might be useful when writing or speaking about the topic.

Tomorrow in the class, we will discuss the topic: INTERNET THEFT and get your ideas about the issue of whether such people who commit Internet movie/music/etc. theft should be penalized or not.

Thank you and see you tomorrow in the class. (If you get a printout of the task sheet, please bring it along)