Copyright Piracy 

Brief

Copyright means that a person is utilizing someone elses’ work without their knowledge prior to the act. Many times, it is often that when someone is using someone elses’ material it not a malicious act, but infact a misunderstanding. Copyright Piracy is very similar to Copyright except it is the act of when someone replicates any copyright material and it is being capitalized on.

 

Consequences

According to Justice.gov it is said that the outcome of this act is:

1.      1 or more works with a profiting value of more than $2,500 is a sentencing of 5 years /or/ fined up to 250,000$ /or/ BOTH

2.      Previously pronounced wrong of this act could be charged up to 10 years maximum in prison /or/ fined up to $250,000 /or/ BOTH

 

Website Piracy

Zlibrary.com 

Z-Library is a website that is known for offering free digital eBook copies of just about any textbook possibly needed. They also provided multiple account plans that consisted: of 5 free downloads per day, 10 free downloads per day, and unlimited downloads any and every day.

 

This site has been in service since 2009 but its popularity grew in light of Tik-Tok the last few years due to influencers providing this site to its viewers to not only give them an outlet to purchase free textbooks if they do not have the funds and also just because its free and who doesn’t like free items.

         

 

The article on FastCompany.com shed light on the situation and that the government began to look into the site that was known for pirating known textbooks into e-book copies and profiting from them. In November 2022, the site was taken down and it’s creators Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova were charged with criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering.

 

Personally, I feel as though the act was very intentional, but I honestly believe that there was no malicious act towards it except stealing the works of the authors. Yes, they stole a significant amount of ebooks from various authors, but they were helping us broke college students out by providing us with free books. They found a problem in world solved it (illegally), but all in all they did help others, though the action was wrong.

Social Media Piracy

Youtube

The biggest site and or app used for broadcasting and viewing videos of any genre is known as YouTube. YouTube is an outlet that increases in some years in numbers and in others it depletes, so in a sense, it never really dies.

 

Influencers on YouTube are constantly being demonetized for copyrighted music and other products in their videos rather it’s a second-long clip or a minute-long clip.

clip starts at 0:32 - 1:01

                         

Ultimately, when their video is demonetized, it means that the content is taken down from the site in which they are not able to gain monetary value from it. Not only is unintentionally wrong, but YouTube also protects its creators by taking down their content instead of creating a criminal offense.

 

This act does not deliberately cause harm, but it is unlawful in a way. If these measures are taken for minor incidents like such, then explicit content rather than its imagery or wording should be treated as such, though it is the measures aren’t as drastic. 

      Reporters Privilege                       

Brief

Reporters Privilege in my eyes is a principle that states that reporters or journalists of that sort are not forced to provide the courts with any information that they received from their informants. Even though reporters are regular people as well, it is the simple fact that they aren’t. Once they are forced or served with a written order, their lives could potentially be at risk: like harm towards their well-being could be at risk, their family could also be at risk of insecurity, and lastly their career could be dissolved.

 

Shields law

As mentioned earlier, reporters lives are put at risk for disclosing on private information that they only know, but as a reporter it is always the code of law to not divulge their notifier. After much consideration of the reporter’s code, their safety, and career, the Shields Law was created. Though the first amendment has been around since 1791 and it was generalized as a law that provides everyone with the “Liberty to talk”, but it did not hold much weight in court.

 

The Shield Law was established in 1979, and it SHIELDS reporters from disclosing content that was given to them that pertains to them composing an article and/or story. Crazily said, this law is very looked down upon when it comes to a criminal or judicial matter due to the severity of the case. Another thing to add is that this law only protects those who are journalist and or reporters that write for public consumption and less.

 

Different Variations of the Shield Law in action

According to (mtsu.edu), the shield law may look slightly different from state to state. This means that though the shield law is made to SHIELD reporters from having to defend themselves in court, a particular state can provide them with a complete dismissal or they could make them provide a little bit of details on the case.

            

For example, in Minnesota they have a law set in place that is called Free Flow of Information Act to which means that if the case includes any kind of slander that the privilege of having the Shield Law could be potentially forgot about in court. Though the Free Flow of Information Act is something that Minnesota encourages when a malediction is involved in the case, they are still lenient to actually go forward with the ruling unless the information needed had no other way to be spotlighted.

 

Fairness of Reporter’s Privilege Laws

Many believe that reporters shouldn’t be able to opt out of spilling the beans in court, especially when a life or law is at stake. My take on this is like what I mentioned earlier about the risk put upon the reporter’s life from telling someone else’s truth. The Shield law does not absolutely shield them from confessing in some cases, while in others they’re able to go scotch free. Without reporters, we would have no news and without the informants, we would have no journalists to spread or advocate the news. Overall, journalists do the grimy work for us and all we must do is stay invested in the drama. They’re the real saviors.