Week 4- Readings

Creators:
I also found this chapter about Walt Disney and the “borrowing” of Steamboat Willie which featured the one and only Mickey Mouse to be extremely interesting. I can’t say I am surprised though that Disney or the industry would do this type of action, but I am surprised that this issue or story hasn’t come up more. I think plenty of people would be interesting in knowing the true story behind the making of one of the most popular animated characters in the world. I thought Josh’s comment: “Recently, a law was pushed through Congress extending copyright limits (so it takes longer for things to enter the public domain). The law's main sponsor? Disney. The company was fearful of other people using the highly recognizable character of Mickey Mouse” was extremey ironic. It is interesting that Disney would do this considering the way they came about Mickey Mouse in the first place.

Declaration of Independence:
I found some particular parts of this article to be interesting. I liked the line that read:
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
I think this is a legitimate argument. Through cyberspace there is hardly any prejudice or place where people fear being themselves. People are basically permitted to express any opinion or idea without being punished or outcast, which almost goes against what was written earlier about there being cyber-guards in different parts of the world monitoring what occurs in cyberspace.

Pirates:
It seemed as if everyone commented on how most of these big companies that complain about piracy were at some point doing the same action they argue against. “Imagine the injustice of the thing. A composer writes a song or an opera. A publisher buys at great expense the rights to the same and copyrights it. Along come the phonographic companies and companies who cut music rolls and deliberately steal the work of the brain of the composer and publisher without any regard for [their] rights.” This is a very good point and it is a big injustice, however I must admit I am a culprit of downloading/downloaded music through such programs like Napster and Limewire. It is not that I am trying to deliberately hurt the composer; on the contrary, I like his/her music which is why I am downloading it in the first place. It is more out of convenience that I think people use these programs which are easily available with the internet. As for the radio, I think the radio helps promote music and artists so how can the article really say that the radio gets something for nothing? Sure the artists may not get money but they get exposure which in turn leads to consumers wanting to buy their music, listen to it, and perhaps even go to a concert.