201201925 Ahn Chihwan / Argumentative Essay / Thursday 1-3 p.m.

Protect Your Brain

  Where do you watch movies? I bet most people have downloaded movies or TV shows from the internet illegally. So have I. This practice is wrong. It's same as stealing things from a shop without recognizing it as somewhat wrong. Every type of intellectual property should be protected because it's equal to tangible property in this information society and because people would want to keep enjoying those things.

  For starters, it is information society that we're living in. Most goods and properties are ideas, which are made not in factories but in brains. It is ideas that actually enable development of every aspect of the society. Intellectual property is just equal to tangible property, or even more important. If it's not protected by every means, the whole society can't help going through significant undermining.

  Secondly, when it comes to piracy, illegal copy-and-pastes, there needs to be concrete ways to regulate it. It is because people want to keep enjoying various things made and distributed by other people. Intellectual property has no exclusiveness which means that one can't have it if someone has it. But this is not the weakness of IP, but rather the strength of it. If not protected, it won't be made, which means we would not be able to enjoy it any more.

  Of course, there are wrong practices such as misusing patents to monopolize something or granting patents to too common ideas. However, these problems can be improved. Discussions and controversies on IP are relatively quite recent issues. So I would say they can be resolved if the related standards are specified and the number of workers engaged in the related fields is increased. It's only the matter of time. 

  To sum up, I claim that intellectual property should be protected so that the society could keep developing and people could enjoy various types of intellectual property. Just think of it simply. You would want your creative ideas to be protected, not to be stolen by someone else. Concerning the problems, it is needed that the legal and institutional regulation standards should be specifically made, and that people's consciousness about this issue should be improved. 

Lee Seongho/Copyright And Theft On The Internet/ Thursday 56

Due to CCTV, Security and increased civic consciousness, Theft rate is decreasing in the real world. However, in the cyber world, ironically, it is not so. As the internet has easy access to any files and lack of property safe guards, a countless number of things are being stolen every second on the internet. Representatively, Movies, music, and user created contents are the most victim of internet illegal downloading and have their own reasons to be protected as individuals' property.

 

Since 1900s, movies have become one of the biggest internet industries. Accordingly, many kinds of job happened and the number is also big. And of course, all the people in the movie industry are paid by the income from the movies. However some people do not even hesitate to download the movies made by every drop of movie makers, actors, actresses, extras, and all staff. Yes, as I mentioned above, due to the fact movies are the main income of some jobs, downloading them without pay is illegal, that is, theft! So, first, illegal downloading sites should be cracked down, legal downloading sites should be activated as a right culture and illegal downloaders and uploaders should be punished as the degree of their crimes.

 

Music can not be omitted when it comes to cyber industries. Like movies, there are so many people who earn money by music. However the real reason why the copyright protection and copyright fee providing are important is that there are more musicians who just make ends meet or even have no enough income by music than otherwise. Moreover, in that the music files have relatively small volume, many download music very easily and as fast as they don't realize that they are stealing. So there should be more strict law protecting music copyright and providing the copyright fee in the music industry and we also have change our consciousness toward music so properly that we can recognize and acknowledge the copyright of music.

 

In 2000s, as various SNSs and video sites occurred, user created contents(abbreviated UCC) have been thriving. There may be individual creators and corporate marketing advertisement makers. At first glance, UCC are slight and small thing because they are just posted in any places even without the mark of makers. Yes in that case, we will have no problems in taking them. But some are not merely trivial matters. Some UCC for advertisement and some UCC individual creators made to post in their blog, Facebook or site have, strictly, their own copyright. So those who plagiarize others' UCC and post them in their places with pretending to have made them themselves and then get some profit should be punished.

 

Hitherto, of divers kinds of things having copyright, movies, music and UCC were focused and It has become clear that all they have to be protected and illegal downloading and uploading as well are all a crime, that is, evidently theft. The policy about the internet should be set relevantly, especially all individuals have to be conscious toward the copyright of movies, music and UCC in order to respect the creators and make a more proper and civil internet culture.

 

201101883 Hyojeong Shim/IP/Thursday 1-3pm

A Set of Law that is More Harm than Good

 

 

Plagiarism is seen as a serious breach of ethics, and is considered a theft of credit for ideas in a competitive intellectual marketplace. So the Intellectual Property Law is there to protect creations of the mind, which have both a moral and commercial value. IP law typically grants the author of intellectual creation the exclusive rights for exploiting and benefiting from their creation. However, IP laws restrict a person's right to reproduce, alter and distribute things by limiting that ability to the rights holder. It does this by restricting the rights of everyone else: if you haven't been granted the ability to reproduce or alter the work by the rights holder then you cannot. I strongly believe IP law should be abolished for the following three reasons: ideas should not be a limited property, IP laws do not necessarily guarantee creativity, and it hinders community interest.

 

Ideas do not exist, and therefore cannot be appropriated. IP is merely a monopoly privilege to take certain actions, and limit other people's autonomy. IP law punishes people for acting on information they have learned. It forces a perfectly innocent person to abstain from innocent action that they find beneficial to their goals. If the originator discloses the details of a concept to the world, or places a physical example of a product into the view of others, they are then teaching the world facts about what is possible, new ways to interact with reality and the natural world around us. But IP law becomes the threat to people and discourage them from acting on the knowledge the originator made available. This is an assault on the freedom and autonomy of perfectly non-violent individuals.

 

The best motivator for creation is usually a love of and desire towards whatever craft they are in, not the potential benefit. Some people make the mistake of thinking that people do things just to put bread on the table in all cases. I'm aware that we obviously need to eat and live, but true artists and innovators do their best work when they are genuinely interested in a topic/subject/art. Genuine interest cannot, and never has, arisen because of the potential reward that could be gleaned from something. To clarify that, genuine motivation comes from an intrinsic desire towards something. Anything else, be that money, fame, lovers, or whatever, is secondary and does not produce the same level of results.

 

Each person started with the same world; some came before and some came after. All people try to make things out of everything that is available on earth. Whether it is an idea that does not have a tangible form, or a physical good, we shouldn't take claim to intellectual property rights because everything affects each other in some way are is all correlated back to one another. Therefore, we are not the true, original owners of a certain concept. That is to say, we were given what we have by God, so in the same way we should let us give and share what we have to each other. Everything ultimately works together in unity, and so shall we.

 

Unique ideas are valuable and deserve award and respect, but not in a way that hurts one's freedom of speech and the benefit of the society as a whole. Intellectual property law has its pure and good intention to protect an individual's own creative and innovative idea, but it limits other people's autonomy, is not the only motivation for people who strive to create something new, and can socially hinder idea development altogether. Therefore, I believe abolishing IP law will bring about more benefit and advantages to the new information community we are living in.

201001256 Park Seohee/ Illegal music downloading in South Korea/ Argumenative essay/ Thur56

Illegal music downloading in South Korea

South Korea is one of the top countries of online music piracy. Have downloaded music from the internet without payment? If I ask this question most of South Korean people would answer "yes". The illegal circulation of cultural contents as the music in Korea has slumped the music sales rate in a massive quantity. Nowadays, this illegal use of contents has become something common in our lives. So that, there are many reasons of why people download music illegally, some of the reasons are; the weak punishment to piracy law, also the access of high speed internet connection and the fast change of music trends.

The punishment to piracy law has harsh with the three strike law which consists on giving the power to the Korean ministry to delete illegal reproductions, notify the copyright infringers, and suspend their online access. The results says that this law had effect on decreasing the illegal traffic of music but actually the decrease was minimum because the punishment is very weak; the highest punishment that they can receive is 6 months of suspension of the online access. And these punished people switch to unmonitored services, which mean that the government can't be able to catch them because they will not find any evidence in these unmonitored services. So that, on my opinion this three strikes law has failed to curb piracy.

Secondly, the Koreans access to high speed internet connection increases the Illegal circulation of cultural content. In which, the home entertainment marketplace occupies a big part on the Korean culture, that allows to piracy and this was enabled by the high speed internet. Because of the high internet penetration, South Korea is known to have one of the highest rates of online piracy with respect to digital media such as music.  The Korean government took actions for this, but the rapid IT growth opened more doors to the online piracy which made difficult to control it. So this extension of the broadband Internet, brings unexpected problems, such as the copyright infringement or violation of privacy so the government should make changes to the technological development, such as the supporting the regulation.

Also South Korea as on other countries has a fast change in music trends that allows to piracy. This fast change of music trends made a harsh competition in Korean music to survive so the music trends changes even faster. And because of the rapid changes nowadays people don't find the necessity to pay for the music and keep it permanently. Also it is much easier to hear music from a cellphone rather listening it from a CD, so many people prefer to download music rather than buying a CD. Therefore, today's people are very open to the fast change as on the music or on the culture, so there should be some rules to prevent the problems that comes from the rapid changes.

Finally, I mentioned some of the reasons of the illegal download of music such as the weak punishment, the Koreans access to high speed connection and also the fast change of the culture as the music. And this problem is several but I found that it is very difficult to control from the government, so we are who have to control ourselves on not to downloading music illegally.

 

 

201202029 Oh Ga-yeong/ argumentative essay/ Thursday 1-3 p.m.

Sharing music for free              These days, I cannot hear Christmas songs often in the street on Christmas Day. It's because of the copyright law. Do the world really get better if we strengthen the copyright law? If you don't want to hear beautiful songs in the street, then you can believe in that way. However, I can surely say that most people will be happier when they are surrounded by various music in the streets. So I believe that we don't have to strengthen excessively the copyright law related to music because music is different kinds of property when compared to others and downloading music comparatively costs too much, and because the individual's happiness is greater than material benefits.              Firstly, music has a little bit different nature from other properties. For example, in case of essays or thesis, people write them to own privately or to be evaluated as purely his or her work. However, people make the music for other people to hear it. Composers want more and more people to listen to their music. So the purpose of making music is to spread happy viruses among the people. Then, making people pay their money for listening to music does not make sense. We should not consider music as simple materials. We should see it as emotional things. So instead of simply paying money for buying the music, we should evaluate music and give points to songs which made us happy.              Secondly, buying music costs relatively too much. Each song costs about 500 won but with 500 won, I can buy a bottled water. Moreover, we cannot be sure that the song which were chosen by us is perfectly our style. We can be easily fed up with the song. Then, we have to continually pay our money for finding a perfect song. Then, 500 won becomes 2,000 won and then 10,000 won. The poor has also the right to listen to music but if they have to pay their money at this pace, they will rather choose to buy needed food than songs.              Lastly, individual's happiness when they can hear music at all times, at any place is greater than anything. I can also see the point of people who argue that music is valuable intellectual property and we have to protect it. For sure, the profits which are gained by music companies or composers are important. However, I think that each person's happiness is much more valuable than these kinds of profits because music is the property which has to be shared with many people. Imagine that you can hear all Christmas songs when you walk down the streets. It will definitely make you happy and love the Christmas.              I know that property right is really important value. So I also think that we have to protect these values but what I want to say is that we don't need to excessively strengthen the copyright law, particularly the law related to music. It's because music is made to share with others and downloading services for music are overcharging us, and finally because individual's happiness is greater than any values. Protecting property is good action but if we are excessively about to protect these values, we can become emotionally drained.

201102687 Lee, Jun Ki / Sword, Not Keyboard / Argumentative Essay / Thurs 1-3pm

Sword, not Keyboard   Have you ever commented on new article or somebody else's wall? Twisting the question, have you ever left any negative comments on them? Hope not because it is certainly not a nice thing to do. Nowadays, internet is ubiquitous. You can get access to it everywhere you want. However, that does not mean it became lighter. Insulting comments on the internet is certainly against the law, destroys atmosphere of internet, and could drive victims into devastation.                As internet gains popularity, people are now in use of it every second of their life. However, anonymity of internet makes them 'too brave'. People tends to post more words that could hurt others as they do not have to 'face' them or the consequences, but it is clearly against the law. The law ensured that if the victim of posting or comment felt insulted, they could file a lawsuit against the comment writer. When the writer is sentences guilty, they have to pay huge fines. Posting insulting words is a crime, but people are simply not aware of it. Also the part that victim has to file a lawsuit in order to get the writer punished discourages many victims because of difficult process of lawsuit. Just because it is not punished, that does not mean that it is not a crime.                This commenting problem is also affecting the entire atmosphere is internet. I do admit that we all have freedom of speech, but some people are just going too far. Internet was a good place to express opinions, however it is now just a debate table of people who lacks logics. From some point, we could not see any positive comments on internet article. Irresponsible writers had made an atmosphere that suggestive comments draw all the attention. They ruined the nice and clean atmosphere of internet. They have created a world where insult is accepted. Taking a part in this process is destroying the internet ethics.                The victims of insulting comments are the foremost reason that why it should never happen. These victims are not just celebrities or character of public. They could be middle school student being bullied or normal salary man having hard time in their jobs. Recently a middle school student committed suicide after being bullied online though SNS. The one word you write could destroy entire life of a person. This is going below the belt. Just because you do not face victims that does not mean that they do not exist.                Internet was created to make our life happier. However due to some peoples' irresponsible habits, it is destroying lives. Some people do not realize the effect of internet commenting. They should be aware that it is against the law, worsens internet atmosphere, and hurts other people. It cannot be justified nor should be justified, and no one should ever agree on these actions.

201200741 Jung Eun / Death to criminals around the world! / Argumentative essay / Thurs 56

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                     Death to criminals around the world!

 

          Year 2014 had been a turbulent period for South Korea. From Sewol Ferry disaster to violent death of Pvt. Yoon(윤 일병), whether or not to carry out the death penalty to those who are liable for such heavy toll was embroiled in controversy. Sgt. Lee(이 병장) in particular, who turned out to be the main culprit of Pvt. Yoon's(윤 일병) death was put on a lengthy trial between life imprisonment and death penalty debates. Although capital punishment is legalized in South Korea, only the rare case has the justice been served by execution. Dissenters of death penalty assert that handing down the death sentence, even if its recipients are criminals, is nothing but solely, an another act of killing. However, I firmly believe that the life of offenders should not be spared at the expense of the lives of the innocent for the sake of the cause of the criminal's human dignity. As death penalty can save taxes of the people, instill fears into the minds of the potential criminals and can give consolation to bereaved families, I am convinced that capital punishment be approved across the globe.

 

   To begin with, the taxes of the people can be saved if death penalty is actively carried out. According to the latest news report, it cost nearly 9 million one for the imprisonment on yearly basis. And of course, we are well aware of the fact that such expenditures, do apparently come from the very hands of the public. Imagine how the bereaved families would feel about their taxes being spent on those who are murderers of their precious family member. Besides, it appears unreasonable for the taxes of the people to be expended on those who seem to pose perceived threats against the society and public at large. If death penalty law is instituted across the globe, expenditures for imprisonment can be used in other social sectors where majority of tax payers can benefit to a greater cause and in a wiser way.

 

   Secondly, executions can instill fears into the minds of the potential criminals. It is a conventional wisdom that everybody fears death. Even to offenders who commit hideous crimes share same emotional grounds with us when it comes to the death. (Not absolutely but highly likely). If death penalty is officially approved across the globe, it might deter murders and crimes committed by offenders for fear of being punished by the government when caught. Although opponents of the death penalty argue that human dignity of criminals should be respected, it appears irrational to protect the human dignity of the offenders at the expense of risking the lives of the innocent who can end up becoming their victims.

 

  Last but not least, death penalty can give consolation to bereaved families who have lost the most precious member of their family because of such offenders. If government fails to serve the justice by punishing criminals in a righteous manner as in capital punishment, no way can the bereaved families feel compensated emotionally. Not only does the government obliged to secure the safety of the public but also provide emotional comfort and consolation to those who suffered great loss from such tragic incident. If death penalty law is instituted across the globe, lasting fears of captured criminals would become less worrisome to both the government and to citizens.

 

  To sum up, death penalty should be carried out across the globe. As it saves the costs of the imprisonment, serves as a force for good in combatting crimes and gives mental consolation to the bereaved families, the advantages of execution far outweigh its disadvantages. Therefore, I strongly believe that the death penalty be actively implemented.