Valenti says colleges should teach about morality of file sharing

NepaNews -- The Associated Press ^ | 10-22-2003 | Tha Associated Press

[RealNerd]

Colleges and universities derive tremendous benefits from high-speed Internet connections, but they have a duty to educate their students about the ethical issues surrounding the sharing of copyrighted music and movies, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America said Wednesday.

Jack Valenti, in a speech to Penn State University faculty and students, said that while movie theater revenues have risen, video and DVD rentals and sales have dropped because so many people are using the Internet to download files for free.

[snip]

Valenti also said that parents should be wary of file-sharing sites because of the availability of "the most squalid, unwholesome, repugnant pornography you've ever seen.

"And a 10-year-old kid could get that and you'd never even know," Valenti said.

[RealNerd]

Is it odd that the morality spoken of in this article is tied more directly to the moral problem of copyright infringment than the moral problems inherent to pornography?

[Radix]

Colleges and Universities should teach students how to read, write, and think. They have, it appears from here, lost site of that aspect of their original Raison d'etre, long ago.

[Semper Paratus]

Person representing the motion picture industry lecturing anybody about morality is beyond laughter.

[JoJo Gunn]

Jackboot Valenti speaks!

[DarrenT]

Your right about porn. More information needs to be shared with parents about porn and peer-to-peer networking.

This has been a hot topic lately. There was something else about the RIAA and file sharing earlier. Somebody listed http://www.mediafence.com/ as a resource. That sight has a good section on porn and file sharing.

Parents can know what their kids are looking at.

[Jeff Chandler]

Person representing the motion picture industry lecturing anybody about pornography is beyond laughter.

[RealNerd]

Good point.

[weegee]

How does educating college students about the morality of downloading files prevent 10 year olds from downloading explicit pornography through file sharing systems?

Do many college students have 10 year old kids? Does Jack see this as a problem that will still exist or be worse in 10 years when these students have kids?

Is this all a big scare campaign designed to demonize file servers? Usenet being the biggest of all?

Why not just state that the terrorists are encrypting plans and embedding them into pornographic pictures that are uploaded to these servers (with the real content only being seen by privileged eyes)?

[TopQuark]

That's what I was thinkins as well: morality should be taught be parents and churches/synagogues.

But he is not entirely incorrect, however: parent increasingly fail to teach, and we attend our religious institutions less and less. He instinctively searches for something else to fill the vacuum.

[Jeff Chandler]

That's what I was thinkins as well: morality should be taught be parents and churches/synagogues. (and...mosques???)

[weegee]

Many files are shared (legally or illegally) through file servers.

A few years ago, there was even discussion of the grannies who traded needlepoint plans/designs through the internet. It seems that some companies complained that their copyrighted designs were being "stolen". Is it theft to check out a book of such designs from the library and photocopy the page with the instructions and use that for stitching? Is it theft the buy the book but rather than cut it apart, photocopy the page and stitch the design? Can the uncut book then be resold or must that page be torn out?

Copyright law prevents someone else from copying those pages and reselling them as an original (or derivative) work. It does not make it illegal to copy those pages outright though.

Many file servers are free; there is no commercial aspect to the transactions. This is what differentiates these copyright cases from older bootlegging cases.

The film industry has long been aware of people who traded VHS copies of rare foreign video releases or privately transferred copies of 16mm and 35mm prints. If they were trading the films rather than selling them, there was little money to be made in persuing such cases (monetary damages).

If Hollywood wasn't trying to postpone inevitable copyright expiration, there would be more works in the public domain (as per the original agreement that the companies signed when these works were created). There are plenty of good films and recordings in the public domain; even more "free stuff" would be that much more to keep downloaders busy.

Hollywood's problem isn't with the downloading per se, it is with "free stuff". Too much free stuff means shrinking revenue for Tinsletown.

[TopQuark]

In principle, yes.

One could also ask the same question: was morality taught in the churches of Southern France at the time of the First Crusade, for instance, truly representative of the Christian teachings? Probably not.

At the present time I am weary of what is taught in the mosques because of whom the mosques have been hijacked by. But in principle, I do not see a problem with that.

Did you find a problem with what I said?

[RightWhale]

What's really odd is that some people don't mind illegal file sharing but blame Clinton for sharing info with China. Any difference, morally speaking?

[swilhelm73]

What's really odd is that some people don't mind illegal file sharing but blame Clinton for sharing info with China. Any difference, morally speaking?

Well, is Johnny "Slacker" Average going to nuke us with his copied version of a Stones song? Your anaolgy is a rather serious nonsequiter.

[Orangedog]

Valenti says colleges should teach about morality of file sharing

Just as long as they teach about price fixing at the same time, since the recording industry lost a class action suit for that recently recently.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>Did you find a problem with what I said?<<

No.

[Imperialist]

"Why not just state that the terrorists are encrypting plans and embedding them into pornographic pictures that are uploaded to these servers (with the real content only being seen by privileged eyes)?"(weegee)

Stenogrophy. It is real hard to detect. Easy to share.

[The Red Zone]

Steganography. Stenography is what a secretary does.

[RightWhale]

Your anaolgy is a rather serious nonsequiter.

You're right. Clinton's data sharing was not illegal.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Actually, this statement by Valenti is highly illuminating.

Liberals believe that the only form of immorality that exists is the act of withholding money from them.