Term 3 Week 7- Copyright

Hi 5.5,
we have just ended Cyberwellness week with the assembly talk last week by the representatives from IPOS (Intellectual Property of Singapore) and also had a discussion about some examples of companies who do not follow nor respect the importance of intellectual property.

Some of you have raised the point that copyright issues like buying pirated CDs / VCDs etc are taken very lightly by many Singaporeans. There are also those who simply take content or images from the Internet for granted.

Do we think twice about asking for the author's permission before we hit the "save as"??

For references, it's fine. But, taking other's work and saying its yours, that equals to stealing people's work or people's property.

Do you think that's being dishonest??

OR are you fine with people taking your work as their own??

Will you be happy if you saw others getting credit for the hard work you put inside your creation???
That's something I would like you to think about when you are thinking of downloading some images into your Powerpoint slides or saving information from websites.

One habit you need to cultivate now is, when downloading or using anything on the websites for projects or part of your research work, you have to list down the website addresses you took information from at the end of your work, if you are unable to get permission from the author.

Example:

References taken from:
< website address >
< website address >

With this good practice, there is no way that people would be able to accuse you of copyright or plagiarism as you have already acknowledged that the information was taken from elsewhere. It's perfectly alright to tell others that you have referred to websites for information. At least, you are being honest with yourself and it displays a great sense of integrity and respect for the owners / creators of the websites.

If you look carefully at YOUTUBE's website, they advise users with the following message:

Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself....

Do you think people who upload videos onto Youtube have followed the advice given above???

While it is nice and we find many videos uploaded very entertaining, and its FREE too, do you think we should also spare a thought for the original owners of the videos put up? How would they feel?

While they could be happy knowing that their work is highly popular, are they getting the recognition they deserve from their products?

What opinions do you have regarding this?? Feel free to post your comments at the end of this posting. OR you could post your opinions in your own blog.

Update your posts!!!