Topic Twelve

Lecture- Adam spoke about Electronic Civil Liberties, about how the Government apparently wiretapped the Internet in San Francisco. Is this Spying? Should this be illegal? Personally, I think that the only people that would be upset with this wiretapping are those that are committing activities that are illegal. It may be a loss of privacy, but at least it narrows down those committing illegal activities on the net.
Creative Commons is an alternative way of exchanging information, copyright etc over the Internet and the World Wide Web.
He also talked about free and open software. He explained about how Software works. Source codes are instructions written in computer code (HTML) that allow a computer to do different things. From there, the source codes are translated to files, which eventually reach the computer.
Software used to be free; a way to improve and exchange ideas and enhancements on the computer, but the business world has now the first priority of profit. Therefore, Software now costs money.
Free software, that doesn’t cost money, is now called Open Source. The deal is that everybody can make contributions and has a shared ownership.
Readings- One of the readings was titled “Why Software should not have Owners” by Richard Stallman. He says that technology on the net allows info to be copied much easier. Copyright owners of software don’t like this because copies are made without their approval, therefore losing their profit.
The copyright system was formed with Printing, and so when it involves printing it’s a fair system. It changes though, when everything is apparently copyrighted with digital technology. He says the copyright system needs to change. I agree. Personally I think it should be the Companies, Telstra or Optus for example, that make the profit for downloaded material that should give a percentage to the companies that that own software or information that is being downloaded.