Am I a digital thief?
Copyright law seems incredibly outdated. These days you can get movies, songs, books; pretty much any creative material for free via the web. Friends of mine download via BitTorrent, some choose to pay for songs through iTunes. Even the latest Harry Potter book was available on Scribd days after it’s release (Thanks to Will Richardson for pointing this out on his blog) I have never really been into downloading these type of media, it just seemed to complex and a little bit wrong. But it is getting increasingly easier and more frequent and my personal opinions are changing. Recently, I discovered online TV, it streams the TV shows I am interested in directly onto my computer. The quality is not the greatest, but it beats paying $70 for the latest season on Lost or Heroes, plus no commercials. As great as this is, I still have anixeity about it, am I stealing? Will these great shows stop being made if we all stop paying?
I justify it by paying my SaskTel Max service charges which entitle me to these shows for regular scheduled programming, but most often I can not be available for the regular scheduled programming. However, I do not subscribe to HBO, and they have the best shows and I admittedly have checked them out for free via the web. Should I go to jail? Who thinks this is stealing?
A friend of mine passed on this reasoning that he had heard from his priest. The priest, an avid downloader, said “If your neighbor was continually throwing whole, unwrapped chocolate bars over your fence would it be wrong to eat them? No. So why would it be wrong to take advantage of products sent to us through satellites and phone cords?” What a justification eh, and from a priest no less! If only it was that simple, the owners of this creative material are not simply throwing it over the fence, but others are grabbing it from them, like candy from a baby, and throwing it to us. It can be argued that creators of this material need to improve their avenues and methods or delivery to the public, but we, the public also need to demonstrate online morale by not taking advantage of these tools.
So the questions I leave you with are these. How do we develop this morale with our students when they see their friends and family downloading thousands of songs or the latest movie? How do we demonstrate proper use of technology without infringing on the ownership and hardwork of others?
All of this is making me feel a little… 
I have been out of touch for about 9 or 10 days, no internet, no computer. Just relaxing and reflecting in a quiet campground called Englishmans Creek on Lake Koocanusa south of Fernie. It was good to get away, I always enjoy my time away from my regular paced lifestyle but this time I found myself wanting to get back. I couldn’t put my finger on it until a couple days ago, but while camping my mind kept wandering back to all of this web 2.0 mumbo jumbo that my brain has focused on for the past couple months. I have a lot of questions about the how’s and whys that are involved with the implementation of the tools I am learning about. I find that the more I contemplate these questions, the more technology’s place in my teaching philosophy is cemented. With time and experience I will flesh this philosophy and the answers to these questions out further.
