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I am not usually the kind of person that shops a lot online but my friend told me a way to get cheap basketball jerseys so I checked it out.  Jerseys from major league teams usually cost somewhere in 100-200 dollar range.  However, there are Chinese wholesale websites that sell these same jerseys for 20 dollars.  When looking at this I figured that this has to be illegal and trampling all over copyright laws.  Is there a loophole?  For example, if the NBA logo is not put on the jersey can they be made at will?  Or is it because copyright laws don’t apply the same way internationally?  Either way I have no idea how these companies aren’t shut down for copyright infringement.

While the Boston tragedies were happening I was struck with the difference in media strategies.  A lot of news was gotten from websites such as Twitter and other blogs and not so much the news.  This has to do with the eBook discussion because it shows that technology is changing not only eBooks but other aspects of technology as well.

I was also wondering if there are any reprecussions at all for someone who reports news on blogs to be completely wrong.  For example if they re-report something that was heard on CNN completely wrong could they get in serous copyright trouble for misreporting what was heard from another source?

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The learning of academics produces happiness from individuals while also effect competency in a positive manner. Knowledge is increased as well as our “power” and all around is a benefit.  Knowledge is meant to be shared and explained, not used to argue.  This helps everyone and results in a better community and world.  Making good use of knowledge is more beneficial than simply using information for selfish learning.

This was the first assignment for the plagurism assignment.  What I tried to do was basically say the same thing but in my own words.  The part that took the longest was reading the article so I went to wikinotes.  This could lead to missing some key points, but the time was needed.  Not having time was the key problem here which brings up the point that if a paper is worked on with sufficient time it will be vastly improved.  Rushing leads to missing key details and not having time to do necessary research like I found with this assignment.

After doing those plagiarism exercises in class I did not understand why people would choose to plagiarize as opposed to doing the work on their own. To me, at least, doing the work and writing things in your own style seems to be much easier.

The plagiarism case that I found,  France: Chief Rabbi Steps Down Over Plagiarism, really struck me. Reading about a Rabbi that chose to stoop to the level of committing such an unethical act disappointed me a lot. Rabbi’s are known to be such ethical leaders of Jewish communities. It is very unfortunate and shameful that this instance could happen.

This New York Times article discusses how a wedding dress designer found out that someone in China was selling a knockoff version of her dress on Etsy. I was perplexed that the website wouldn’t take the fake dress off when the fake seller was exposed. The end of the article also struck me: “Ms. Dye said that seeing the dress took away a lot of her anxiety about piracy: “Anybody who could order this dress for $188 and be happy with it, is not going to order a dress from me anyway.” So many copyright cases we have discussed have involved how much profit the original seller/creator is losing. Here, Ms. Dye admits that she probably is not losing many clients from the knockoff.

This New York Times article was published in January and describes the rise of Jenna Lyons, the “executive creative director of JCrew.” In the article, Ms. Lyons is quoted as saying. “It is not like you have to prescribe to a certain identity or idea to be a part of the brand,” she said, adding that one of the things she and Mr. Drexler bonded over early on was that they didn’t want to see any visible logos on any of the clothes. “I think that has more integrity than something that makes you feel like if you don’t look a certain way, you cannot be part of it.” Book publishers and many clothing lines have a logo to signify their brands. I found it interesting that Lyons did not want to create a logo because that seems to be the common trademark of companies.

I found it interesting to have to compose both an audio essay and the same written essay. I liked that I was able change the tone of my voice to make a point in the audio essay. There were also some detriments to the audio essay. My essay included some references to 1984, specifically “Big Brother is watching you.” (Here is a link to a summary of the book.) The last sentence of my essay was, “Professors at small, liberal arts colleges should not be Big.” I liked having more control over the tone of the words in the audio essay, but the written essay ended up expressing the punchline better. I realized that one essay form isn’t necessarily better than the other. It just depends on what and how the author is trying to express a point.   

Words from Bacon’s essay:

that need pruning
give forth directions
wise men use them
but to weigh and consider
read wholly, and with diligence and attention
Histories make men wise

My essay revisits the topic of authorship and readership in the context of the Fourteenth Amendment and marriage. In order for the Constitution to remain a living document, it must be elastic. Judges must interpret the document and not be consumed by original intent. Case rulings “need pruning” so that precedent can stand. The Constitution, specifically the Fourteenth Amendment when discussing social issues, must be read wholly with diligence and attention to the concept of equal rights and due process. The Fourteenth Amendment “gives forth direction” for judges to find their destination within a case.

I found that I took the words out of context and tried to force them to work. It was an all-around disaster! It was difficult to make it flow together or make any sense. The final product was a muddled mess.

I found this article in the New York Times about a man named Christian Ward who has been repeatedly stealing people’s poems and entering them in contests under his own name to make money. The poems he enters in these contests are “identical in line and stanza to the original, except for a few strategic word changes.” I think it’s incredibly shocking how he thought he would be able to repeatedly do this without being caught. Maybe it would have been understandable for him to believe that he could have entered one plagiarized poem into a poetry contest and possibly get away with it. But numerous plagiarized poems? That’s a bit too daring. The fact that he repeatedly did this shows that either he did not take plagiarizing seriously or that  he was not fully aware of the consequences of plagiarizing

I found this extremely interesting article on Jane Goodall’s book Seeds of Hope. Apparently she “borrowed” several passages in her book from other authors and failed to give them credit for it.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this plagiarism case is the way it was handled by the public, as well as the Post and the New York Times.   Apparently, “when the Post and the New York Times reported these findings, both avoided saying that Goodall had plagiarized—which, even by the strictest definition of the word, she did—instead writing that she “borrowed” passages, fully intending, apparently, to return them upon publication.”

The article also mentions the reason as to why Jane Goodall was able to get away with this act of plagiarism with very few repercussions–because she is Jane Goodall. She’s a cute little white-haired lady who no one wants to mess with. Do you think it’s right that Jane Goodall was essentially able to get away with plagiarizing because of this?