Blog #5: Copyright

Well I have to admit that I have never really thought to much into copyright issues when it comes to the way I conduct myself on the internet. I admit that in high school I used to download music illegally through LimeWire and other applications when they used to be popular. Between work and school over the last 4 years I simply haven't had much time to worry about downloading music, legally or illegally, since I really dont listen to music much more unless I am in a car. For that reason I have been off the downloading bus for several years.

It was always one of those things that I knew a lot of people that were doing it, so I didn't think to much about it since no one close to me ever go in trouble for doing it. Not that it made it right to do so by any means, but it was my rationale for doing so back in the day.

I also used to watch the occasional show on megavideo before it got shut down. I suppose that my rationale for doing so is similar to what it used to be. That is that a lot of people do it and quite honestly, it seemed too good to be true that a site could operate for so long without being shut down. Unfortunately it did get shut down, forcing me to subscribe to hbo/showtime to watch my premium television.

Other than these two things I dont really encounter many copyright issues that are blatantly obvious to me. I dont spend a whole lot of time on the internet other than for school stuff and Facebook, which may account for this. Though it does bring to mind a recent email sent out by someone at the university, possibly a DoIt announcement about those caught illegally downloading content on the campus's servers. I actually have a co-worker who was asked to remove all his illegally downloaded material and to stop the illegal behavior or face more academic consequences. Not sure how I feel about that but its something to ponder.