Portfolio 3
Introduction
Piracy. It is an ugly word. At some point in my life, I will argue in a spectacular essay for its true value and cultural redefinition. Perhaps I will call it “In Defense of Piracy.” Well, this is not that essay. I do not have the time or space in this assignment to enter a philosophical argument about words and subcultures. Instead, I intend this essay to be the beginning of such an endeavor. Listen closely as I emphasize certain cultural practices regarding intellectual property stealing (I cannot call it copyright, for I begin in a time far before that word). Without stepping on any controversial landmines, I expect my essay to argue at least this much: that “piracy” today is used as a catchall term which unfortunately catches both unethical and ethical practices, that the copyright industries throw their weight in government in order to pursue what they wrongly see as unethical practices, and that the majority of people who call themselves pirates engage in basically ethical practices which are only made unethical by the way in which copyright industries have decided to perceive the effect of the current cultural shift caused by the Internet. In terms of the blogs, I only wish I had the skill to mimic the style of the video found in the first. It is in the spirit of that video which I record my own. I only hope that my essay can speak equally well to both camps on the piracy debate.
Blog Posts
Blog 1: Piracy in the Video Game Industry
Blog 3: Portfolio in 300 Words or Less
Essay
Portfolio 2
Introduction
Tell me to write on any case study pertaining to copyright, and you know I will go straight to the Internet. It also may be no surprise that I began researching on memebase. As a hub of criticism against the government as well as anything copyright, I knew I would find some interesting stuff on this site. Unfortunately, the moderators seemed more interested in an eternally sour cat than with current copyright law. Eventually, I found out about the CCI’s six strikes program and it immediately struck a chord in me. I drafted a blog post and began to wonder if I could write about this. My partners had no objections, so we took on the case. Following from my blog post, I structured the essay so that it almost acts like a comparison between SOPA and the new CAS. Though the essay does not weigh the merits of the two in relation to each other, I nonetheless used SOPA to bookend our discussion. Pay attention then, to the problems which CAS corrects from SOPA, and why we posit that there will be no such retaliation against the CCI as there was against Congress. Although we were unable to discuss issues of privacy in the essay, we focus on the history and future path which copyright enforcement over the internet will take.
Blog Posts
Blog 3: Copyright Infringement Today
Essay
Portfolio 1
Introduction
When starting to think about this assignment, I immediately went to the extreme. What greater alternative history to copyright than none at all? So, I began to research the ideological roots of copyright and thought about how I could cut them out of early Western thought. My blog posts include my initial idea of a simplistic world without copyright, as well as just stating some of my quick research. The beginning of the essay serves as background information in order to set the tone of the paper. It also creates the link between the Church and writing of the medieval period, which is crucial to understanding the event in history I chose to change. I am most proud of this part of the essay where I take a man’s life – a life in which the crossroads of authorship, authority, and individuality all meet. Without this pivotal figure to serve as an inspiration, individual, intellectual property has no roots from which to grow. The remainder of the essay addresses the fate of copyright-without-individual a quick idea I had not thought of when beginning the essay.
Blog Posts
Blog 3: Before Self-publishing
Essay