The topic I chose for my final paper is illegal music downloading. I couldn’t find a movie that dealt with the issue of illegal music downloading. Therefore, I went to google.com and found a video that was almost an hour long, and dealt with the issue. The video was a documentary called, Steal This Film: Part 2. It was created on December 31, 2007. J.J. King worked on the production and the direction of the film. Alan Toner, J.J. King, Jan Gerber, and Sebastian Lutgert worked on the concepts of the film. The research for the film was done by Alan Toner, J.J. King, and Luca Lucarini. The whole concept of the documentary is to explain the ways that we produce, distribute, and consume media. One of the main arguments that was presented in the video was, “Is it good or bad that there are now laws which make it harder to get information that’s not your own, and sell or use it"? This film relates to my final paper because I want to know exactly why consumers chose to download illegally. Many people spoke about their views on the subject throughout the documentary. Chairman Dan Glickman says, "Piracy will never be stopped. We just have to try to make it as difficult and as tedious as possible. And we have to let people know there are consequences if they are caught". Attorney Fred Von Lohmann believes that, “law enforcers sue a few people and then punish them severely in order to intimidate a larger number of other people". Law enforcers think that intimidation alone is enough to change peoples’ behaviors, but as we all know it’s not enough. One of the quotes that were said in the video was," Intellectual property is the oil of the 21st century". Mark Ghetty, owner of Ghetty images, is the owner of this quote. Although Ghetty himself was not in the film at all, Sebastian Lutgert explained what the quote means to him. He basically explains that the quote means war, meaning that we fight for our rights to use natural resources. I agree with this quote. I believe that people want to use any resource that’s available, no matter what the cost. If it’s available, we want to use it.
This film compared downloading music illegally to the history of printing. When printing was first invented, printers were the ones being sued for people stealing other’s ideas, just like how record companies were the ones being sued for people illegally downloading. People began smuggling books because they simply didn’t want to pay for them, similarly to people stealing music today because they don’t want to pay for it. Illegally downloading isn’t the only form of, “stealing music” that was discussed in the film. When someone copies a CD from somebody else, this is considered to be stealing too! Consumers have many reasons why they decided to illegally download.
Technology advancement has made it very easy for people to want to copy and share music. According to the film, that’s one of the main reasons why people choose to do so. Another reason is that people love to network with one another. According to Attorney Fred Von Lohmann, “People like the fact that nobody’s in charge of networks, and everybody is in control over their own communications”. It’s so fast and very inexpensive to make copies and distribute them. The film stresses that piracy will never stop because: People like to communicate, share things, and transform things. In the video, down loaders of this illegal activity gave their thoughts and opinions.
Many illegal down loaders were interviewed. A few unknown people in the film were music producers who make their own music. They say they like the fact that they can make music, download it onto the computer, and have others download it. To them, it shows that people like listening to their music. One unknown producer talked about how he likes the fact that people like to remix the songs that he makes, because once again it shows that people like his music. Once one copy of music, etc. is put onto the internet, many copies can be produced.
If one copy gets onto the net, then it suddenly becomes available to everyone to use. There was a funny example of this that was shown in the film. A girl and her mother went to a pet store to get a rabbit. The prices of the rabbits were too high, and the man at the pet store refused to sell the rabbits for any price cheaper. Somehow two of the rabbits got lose from the cage. The little girl then grabbed the rabbits and ran out of the store. This is obviously considered to be stealing. That whole scenario relates to people illegally downloading, and the film stressed that. Like mentioned before, if people feel that the prices of buying a CD is to high, then why not download it online for free? Then more people will download from that source, and so forth. There isn’t just, “one”, computer that’ll stop piracy. In order to completely stop piracy, we would have to go to every single computer and block access to illegal downloading, which seems to be impossible. Trying to find the film’s genre was confusing for me.
The film didn’t have any particular genre, since it wasn’t a movie. It was a documentary. Therefore, it just talked about the issue of illegal downloading and sharing information and how others felt about the issue. There was no action, adventure, comedy, etc. that was presented in the film. I did critique the way the director and others in the movie were.
The director and all of the other people in the film weren’t dressed in any particular way. Some of the people who had more importance were dressed up in a business-like way. For example the attorney and the director himself were dressed business-like. Those who were interviewed from the street were dressed in casual wear. After watching the entire film, I formed my opinion of the film.
My overall opinion of the film is I liked it. I liked the examples that were given throughout the movie. Like I previously mentioned, the rabbit example was one of my favorites. I found it to be funny because it’s a great example of exactly how music starts to spread illegally. The fact that the film interviewed real consumers that illegally download was interesting to me. I myself have illegally downloaded in the past, so I feel like I can relate to these consumers and their opinions on it. It’s so easy to download illegal that it becomes hard to resist at times.

I thought the reading was an ok reading, but it didn’t really interest me too much. There was a lot of useful information in the reading though. I like how the reading had the project checklist questions. There were many questions in the checklist, but I believe they really will help the reader better understand the meaning of the text. I agree with the text that the reading should be thought of as an argument that appeals to the readers. Texts that are argumentative always keep me interested and focused in the reading because I’m not the type of person who’s easily persuaded, so that’s why I like argumentative essays and such. It was useful the text explained the difference between formal diction and informal diction. I prefer informal diction over formal diction because I can use more slang terms and it just makes me feel like I can be myself more and contact to the audience more verses writing a research paper where things have to be in a more serious manner. I also enjoyed the reading in activity 8-8.It was a short reading so I didn’t get bored with it I like how a background of his life was given first, instead of jumping right into the reading, It made things a little bit more clearer. I’m glad that we only had to choose one subset of questions to answer if we prefer to instead of answering all of the sets. I really didn’t feel like answering all the questions, although I would’ve if we had to.

I liked how today’s reading was short. It kept me interested because it was simple. I liked the suggestions that the reading offered. I know that it’s important to read critically, but I sometimes don’t do so. When reading new and unfamiliar texts, I like to make predictions about what’s going to happen. It keeps me interested in the book because I want to know if the predictions that I have made are correct, or close to being correct. If there is a table of contents available, I always skim over it. This helps me base my predictions before I start the reading. I also like to make predictions based on the title of the text. If the title sounds interesting, then it makes me want to read the text. When reading short text, I like to just get the gist or central idea first, and then go back and read the text again as well .I liked how the reading discussed doing this. It helps me get a better understanding of what I’m reading if I can read it more than once. I find myself pausing quite often. It’s good that this was brought up, because I know I’m not the only one who has to pause a lot while reading. It helps me to just stop and gather the information that I’ve read into a better understanding. Annotating a text is a good idea. I don’t usually do this, but it would be helpful if I did all the time. I do highlight a lot if I’m reading information that’s really important that I don’t want to forget. I don’t use sticky notes though or write down questions. Like making predictions, I believe it’s important to form expectations as well in order to keep interested while reading. Making summaries always benefit me because I’ll have something to look back on later if I forget things that were discussed in the reading. I try to make my summaries detailed, so I don’t have to go back searching through the text if I’m confused about a section.

I found the reading to be really useful. I was already aware of some of the information in the reading, but there was still some information that was new to me. I liked how the reading discussed the importance of defining terms. I'm always using online dictionaries. And when researching topics, it helps me to be clearer on what I’m researching if I know what the actual terms mean. I had no clue about Merriam-Webster's dictionary, so I liked how the reading discussed what that was. Now I can use that when trying to find out the meaning of terms. Google is favorite search engine, so that’s where I do most of my research at, like many others. Looking for key words is important to me. I do write down key words when I do my researching. I have never tried using a research journal, but I think that idea is a great idea. I think it would help me stay organized better because I’ll know all the places that I have done research at, even places where I didn't use the information just in case I wanted to look back at the sites. It’ll also help me when doing my bibliography in the end. I think I’m going to create one of these journals from now on when researching. Compiling information on an index card is very helpful. I always use index cards when researching. It helps me stay organized. Overall, I found the reading to be helpful. It gave me a lot of new ideas to use when I’m researching.

I really enjoyed reading this reading. I always find it interesting to read about things that happened in the past that involved segregation and such. I thank god everyday that times have changed! I know as a black woman now, during those times, I wouldn't have the life that I have now. When I think about all segregation and hate that went on in those times it upsets me a lot! I like how growing up Clarissa always wanted to be an independent woman! I think that this is something that everyone should strive for. It's nice to be a woman and not have to depend on a man or anyone else for anything. I don't like how her father told her that if she becomes independent no man would marry her. It seems like every parent would want what’s best for their kids and want them to be independent, and not the opposite. And especially during those times, it seems like that’s what parents would want the most for their kids, and he wasn't being much of a supporter of that. I couldn't believe how during that time, only a high school diploma was necessary to get a decent job. Growing up black during that time made it harder to get that, and that’s why I give props to her parents because they both received high school diplomas and were hard workers. It disappointed me reading about the conditions of her old school. It was unfair that their school was in such poor conditions)! I believe that if you pay money to go to school, then you should at least be in an educational environment that's in decent condition. Reading the part in the reading about Emmett Till was really sad! I remember reading about the case a few years ago in high school. I felt like his death deserved more attention than what it received from the media, and the men who killed him deserved more punishment than what they received. It was ridiculous! I also thought the Virginia Legislation called the," Massive Resistance Laws" was dumb! I can't understand why a law would be pass to close down school that didn't wanted to desegregate. I thought it was neat that Clarissa got the chance to have her picture in a newspaper and to be featured in the story. Many blacks didn't get to experience that opportunity, so that’s why I found it neat that she got to do so. When asked why she wanted to go to a white school she said for equality and to end being a second class citizen. I agree with those reasons of why she wanted to go! Those are things that everyone hopes for and wants. I kind of feel how Clarissa felt when looking at her picture, and feeling dissatisfied! At first I thought maybe she was complaining because she didn’t like the way she looked, but I realized what she was talking about. She feels like the whole article didn't really focus on the black’s involved but rather the whites. Overall I liked the reading.

I think that this reading was too long!!I was interested in the beginning of the reading, but then I started to lose interest towards the end. But there were some things I liked that were discussed in the reading. I like how the reading talked about how human beings always want to know what each other's “story” is. I'm this type of person. I'm always interested in finding out things about new people. Here at school, when I meet someone new, one of the first things I ask them is what their major is. I have to admit that I do form assumptions a lot of the time about people before I even actually talk to them. I don't always like the fact that I do this because to me it’s stereotyping. I wouldn't want someone else to stereotype me, so that is why I try hard not to stereotype others, especially if I form a negative opinion about someone. It was nice reading about this subject in the reading. I thought it was helpful that the reading explained the difference between a, "Gist", and an, "Essence”. I didn't really know what the meaning of either word was so it was helpful that each term was defined clearly. Like I mentioned before, when meeting new people I like to know a lot about them, and so I like it when they give me their gist about themselves so I can get an idea of what they're about. I was a bit confused as to why our identity relates to our genetics and family structures at first. But as I read on, I clearly understood what the author was saying. In my opinion the author is saying that people can go to all different degrees to change their appearance and identity, but they can't change where they grew up and such and how their family structure was. I liked how symbolic functions and advertising were discussed! I beleive that people do form many of their opinions on things based on the ads that represent them and such. I know I do!

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.
Arnold H. Glasow

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.
Arnold H. Glasow

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.
Arnold H. Glasow

I agreed with Many things in this selection of writing. I find it extremely important to proofread, edit, and revise your papers and such before you actually turn in the final copy of the paper. I think it’s important to proofread your papers several times yourself , and to have someone else proofread it also! The main reason why I personally feel it’s important to have someone else, rather than just yourself, proofread my papers is because I tend to make a lot of little mistakes throughout my paper that I never notice as being mistakes. I find that other people usually point out these mistakes right away. I agree that when you revise your papers you need to decide wether it achieves it’s purpose and has the quality that you want it to have. Everyone should think of the grade they would like to receive on the paper, and strive to get that grade. Thinking about my audience is a big thing for me. I try to read my papers from the point of view of my audiences like the reading suggested that writers do. To me, it’s important to make your thesis statements clear like the book mentioned. . I make everything in my writing support or develop my thesis in order to express what I want clearly. Providing lots of detail and evidence is important to me. When I peer edit someone's paper, I like them to provide lots of detail and evidence also! I use these things to decide for one if I agree with what you are saying and also just to know if the person is credible of the information or not.