Hello, for what it's worth, you may plagiarize from
here:
IMHO, computer-related issues that
involve an ethical dilemma are
worthy of discussion
among laymen and computer specialists alike.
Particularly such discussions among computer-related specialists should
be
pursued because computer applications are almost
ubiquitous in our urban
lives (and will continue to
pervade our environment, even as part of our
clothes,
and our very bodies.) So yeah ethics should be important for
computer specialists, students and teachers.
Another field that has dropped its
interest in the ethical questions
arising from its
practice, ie, the mass media, has reached untold lows in
its complete disregard for any responsible behavior towards its end
users.
We don't want to see this happen in the field of computer
science and its
applications. At worst, these ethical
discussions can't hurt.
Now regarding the question of
downloads, I've missed the thread, but I
wish to express
that the intellectual property issue is mostly a hoax, and a
falacious concept that serves only to maximize the profits of the
entertainment industries.
Many aesthetes and philosophers
(Popper, Foucault, Barthes, Jung,
Althussere &c.)
have pointed out that ideas (which translate into popular
culture) arise from clich�s, archetypes and memes that are shared
throughout
our culture, and have been circulating and
roaming around our collective
cultural consciousness for
centuries. These ideas are simply the recycled
riffs,
proverbs, motifs, themes, folk tales and poetry, melodies, hopes and
fear, and indeed the entirety of human experience since the
beginning of
history.
Moreover, I also would like to note
that once you issue a song or a
poem, it is no longer
yours. It is released into popular consciousness.
The notion of royalties is laughable
really.
As to the ethics of intellectual
property, well it is again my personal
opinion that
popular artists are overrated, their wages are overrated
(especially now that art and culture have been on the decline in quality
for
over two decades,) and the videos, books, dvds, and
cds are overpriced by
the entertainment industry.
I believe that true artists do wish
that their art be shared by all,
and for free. A
musician's living would be more rightfully earned from live
gigs, session work wages, contracts with distributors etc. But this
concept
of royalties is a cheat at best.
Having said all this, I encourage
others to use Napster (while it is
still free,) and to
use Gnutella when Napster caves in to corporate lustre.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 6:44
PM
Subject: RE: persuasive speeches
How about a business case for relaxing intellectual property
regulations? If you could put together a good persuasive speech on that one, I
would like to see it. Or you could do a persuasive speech on the economic
advantages of more lenient cryptographic export restrictions.
Or you could do what I did when I had that project in school
(and this is my personal recommendation) - blow off class to go hang out in
the gallery of the House, get there and remember it's tourist season and they
are rotating people through in five minute intervals, and decide to go
downtown and get drunk. I then had to deliver a persuasive speech the next day
on why it was more important to skip class and get drunk than to do
assignments, which didn't impress anyone and earned me a failure on the
assignment.
Or you could subscribe to the speech writing mailing list (I'm
sure there is one) and ask them.
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 4:51 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: persuasive
speeches
I can't think of a persuasive speech topic; can you think of
one?
