Assignment 12: Why is the U.S. Falling Behind?

There are many principles and policies that the Internet follows today. Many of these principles lie in the form of internet governance. Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. It refers to how the internet is run and has been the topic of many debated issues within the internet including whether or not the internet the Internet should facilitate free communication of ideas and information. One topic which I believe falls into this category, but has not yet been made into law and has been highly controversial and debated upon within the world of the internet, is network neutrality.

According to K.C. Jones in his article about network neutrality, there is no one, agreed upon definition for network neutrality, but I believe that Rock the Net describes it best. They stated that network neutrality is the principle that preserves a free and open Internet. They also acknowledged that network neutrality ensures that all users can access the content, or run the applications and devices of their choice. The debate on this topic is between who supports this free and open internet system and who opposes it. The extent to which this issue has been covered is only by the FCC, and they have only laid down some guidelines, not laws. The government has yet to play a big role in network neutrality but should do so in order to ensure that the “ongoing legal and political wrangling in the US regarding net neutrality” will come to an end. In order to ensure that everybody is able to access and use the Internet, network neutrality should be supported by not only people alone and companies, but also by the government in order for network neutrality to officially take a form of internet governance.

So what is at stake here? The U.S. is, theoretically, supposed to be considered and thought about as not only a free country with the people calling the shots, but also one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. However, with countries like Japan who is able to get an internet connection up to sixteen times faster for only a small fraction of what we here in the U.S. pay for DSL services. Because of our lack of a national policy encouraging competition between providers, our country has forced itself to fall behind countries like France, South Korea, Finland, and Canada, broadening the digital divide not because of a lack of resource, but because of a lack of unanimous support for network neutrality (Turner 2005). So in actuality, the interests of the citizens of this country are all at stake concerning this issue in terms of cost and efficiency of our internet connections. We are living in such a technologically advanced world today that you can barely get by without internet access, if at all.

So who is benefiting? Only the big companies who are profiting from this lack of competition among providers allowed by the feeble policies made by the FCC are benefiting from this ongoing debate about network neutrality. The longer the battle goes on, the longer they can get by selling overpriced internet services nation-wide. As quoted from the Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition in September, 2006:

The big phone and cable companies, like AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast, argue that there's no need for the government to get involved in regulating their business. They say they have no intention-nor would it be in their business interests-to block anyone's access to the Internet. But given the huge costs involved in building and expanding the broadband Internet pipeline, they don't see why content providers should be protected by the government from paying their share of the cost.

These big companies are correct in the fact that they are not blocking anybody’s access to the Internet, but what they are doing is depriving us of a cheaper, more efficient service of Internet that is offered in other countries all over the world. So, without the support of these major companies, the people themselves have to be more involved in working towards getting increased government support for network neutrality.

Citations:

(2007, November 13). Network Neutrality. Retrieved November 14, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality

(2007, September). A Battle for Control of the Web. Retrieved November 14, 2007, from The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition Web site: http://wsjclassroom.com/archive/06sep/htop_netneutrality.htm

(2007, September 20). Internet Governance. Retrieved November 14, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance#Controversy

Jones, K.C. (2007, March 16). Net Neutrality Debate Remains Contentious. Retrieved November 14, 2007, from Information Week Web site: http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001557

Musicians Support Network Neutrality. Retrieved November 14, 2007, from Rock The Net Web site: http://www.futureofmusic.org/rockthenet/

Turner, Derek (2005, October 18). Free American broadband!. Retrieved November 14, 2007, from Salon.com Web site: http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2005/10/18/broadband/index_np.html

Assignment 10: Journalism and the Internet

When talking about journalism, one would not usually think of the internet right away. Journalism is, in fact, a discipline of gathering, writing and reporting news in various media that Wikipedia lists as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. The internet, however, is mentioned in the article as a challenge to “the traditional journalistic professional culture.” Although present day news can sometimes be unimportant information about pop culture and celebrities, for example, what kind of trouble Britney Spears is getting into this week; people need to realize that current events are important to keep up with as well. I believe that people tend to get lost in these kinds of alternate realities of celebrity gossip, forgetting about more important issues in the world around them that comes from more reliable sources. The most traditional sources of this kind come in the written form of newspapers, magazines, or even news websites on the World Wide Web.

One of these online sources includes CNN.com. This website includes local and national news as well as videos, photographs, and a search bar to search for news whether it is recent news or older news. One source that does lie within the traditional journalistic professional culture mentioned before is the newspaper, USA Today. One article that both of these sources share that has received quite a bit of media attention is about the fire which occurred at a beach house in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, killing seven college students. Many articles have been written about this event which occurred on Sunday, October 28^th, but the most recent newspaper article I discovered was Wednesday, October 31^st and the most recent CNN report online was on Tuesday, October 30^th. These articles both share the same topic, but because of the different media displays, they also have many differences in how the information is presented to the reader.

In the newspaper, USA Today, the article lies in the Health and Behavior subsection of the paper. The headline reads: N.C. beach house inferno highlights well-known risks and the sub-title reads; Tragedy that claimed lives of 7 students looks similar to other high-profile fires. Within this article, there is one picture of the house in which the fire took place. The content of this article focuses mainly on college housing and fire statistics, especially within the Greek community on campus. The article stresses the importance of fire safety and includes interviews of mainly authority figures from colleges and fire experts, leaving little room for doubt because it is composed of strictly facts, rather than opinions. The website CNN.com, however, presents not only different information, but in a much different way.

In the article provided on the CNN news website about the North Carolina fire, the headline reads: Three Carolina fire victims were high school buddies. This article, although only published one day before the article in the USA Today, provides almost none of the same information given in the newspaper. Instead, the content of this article revolves around the people involved in the fire and the incident itself. The article goes on to name the victims, as well as the survivors of the fire and touches on the actual occurrence of the fire and what the scene was like. This article also held a lot more emotion than that of the USA Today. Quotes were taken from interviews of some of the witnesses, as well as family members and friends of the victims of the October 28^th fire in North Carolina, bringing the reader to a more personal level with the event. Not only were there differences in content in these two articles but because of technology, other differences are allowed through the internet rather than print sources.

Because of technological advances in journalism, the internet has brought on a much more interactive way to present the news. In this particular article on CNN.com, people are able to comment on the article and receive feedback from people on their comments. The internet also allows multiple pictures as well as videos to be shown that relate to the article. Multiple photos of the “devastation” of the fire as well as the victims themselves can be found within this article by simply clicking on a link. Videos are also available for viewing on the site within the article such as video recordings of some interviews that took place. You also have options to e-mail, save, or print the article. These features together makes the online article not necessarily more informative seeing as though both articles contained different information, but definitely more convenient in the sense that the photographs and videos allow the reader to identify and to react more to the article and the online article is also a good way to be involved by being interactive and commenting on articles that you think are important or that you have a strong opinion on.

Citations:

(2007, October 30). Three Carolina fire victims were high school buddies. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/30/beach.fire/index.html?iref=newssearch

(2007, November 5). Journalism. Retrieved November 5, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism

Davis, Robert (2007, October 31). N.C. beach house inferno highlights well-known risks. USA Today , p. 8D.

Assignment 8: Review of my DMS155 class Webpage/Forum

Site Name: New Media DMS 155

Site URL: http://newmedia.gothacked.org/newmedia/

Function of Site:

This website was made and designed by my DMS155: Introduction to New Media professor, Chris Ferrari. The site was made so that the students in the class can interact with each other through forums and so that the students can look up homework on the forum and reply to them with the completed assignment. The site was also set up so that we, as students, can look at each other’s work that we’ve done in Adobe Photoshop and comment on the work, making the site very interactive between students, as well as the professor.

Site Design:

This site is designed as a blog/forum in order to increase interactivity within the class. On the front page of the site, the most recent and important blog entries from the professor are shown. Each entry on the front page is only a preview, so in order to view the entirety of the entry; you must click on the heading. Also on the front page, fingernails of the Photoshop works of the students are presented in a column on the left hand side. Each time you go to the site or each time you go back to the home page of the site, the fingernails will rotate so that you see different ones each time. When you click on a fingernail, it will link you to Flickr, an interactive website which allows you to create a username and post photographs that you have taken or made for others to view and to comment on. As a class, we use Flickr in DMS155 as our posting site for all of our photographs that we have made for assignments or just for fun.

On the top of the front page of the site there are different tabs that you can click on: Home, Syllabus, Blog, Links, Contact Us, Search, FAQ’s, Forum, and User Links.
The Home tab is the front page which I just described above. The Syllabus tab takes you to a page in which the class syllabus is located. The Blog tab takes you to a page, almost like the front page, but with more blog postings that the professor felt weren’t as important as to post those to the front page, but important enough to include them within the site. The Links and User Links tabs give us students reference links to use to help us with certain homework or to clear up some things that we have gone over in class that we might not understand very well. The Forum link is one of the most important links on the site. The Forum link allows all students in the class with a username and password for the site to communicate through forum topics such as: homework assignments and group project discussions.

Social Aspects of Site:

This site is very interactive between not only the students of the class, but also between the students and the professor. All assignments from the class are done through this site, making it a key aspect of the class. When it comes to group projects, the site is very important because it allows specific forum topics for each group, giving each group their own way of non-confusing, convenient feedback and communication on input of ideas. This site also allows people to form groups for projects because of similarity in interests that can be found by looking at each others past assignments and projects through the blog replies and through the Flickr photographs. This site is also very beneficial for students because if, say I miss a class, then I am able to look up the homework on the site instead of going through the process of e-mailing either the professor or somebody else in the class and then awaiting a reply before I can even get started. This site is very interesting in the way in which the professor made it specifically for this class because I had never even heard of anybody doing that before. It makes class more interesting and more interactive at more convenient times and also benefits the professor by not having any papers to keep track of, but instead just has to log in to the site.

This site, I believe, is very comparable to sites such as Blogger in that it is a continuous stream of blogging, replying, and commenting, but I also believe that it is a bit more interesting of a way for a class to be and keeps students involved

Assignment 7: Be Selfish! Take Advantage of Your Community Resources

When discussing the term community, Wikipedia suggests that, in general, a community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. In human communities, conditions that may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants of the community include: intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks as well as a number of other conditions. A community that can be found on the World Wide Web, however, is different. This particular type of community can be described as an online community, a virtual community, or an e-community. An online community is then defined as a group of people that primarily interact via a computer network rather than face-to-face. Examples of these may include: instant messaging programs, e-mail, list serves, blogs, etc. Although these two communities may seem very different, they share a purpose, a purpose in which I am going to identify through my own, personal interaction within these two different communities.

An online community in which I belong to is the Communications major list serve. This specific community is set up so that the Communication advisers can easily get in touch with every student within the major who chooses to become a part of the list serve and serves to bring information to all students within it, including: scholarship opportunities, meetings, internship/job opening and opportunities, times in which advisers are available, and any other information that the Communication advisers perceive to be important enough to inform the entirety of the student body within the major. This type of online community reflects the Lasswell Model of Communication in that communication flows one way with very little to no multi directional communication within the community. Any feedback that does occur occurs indirectly by students participating in the opportunities offered by the e-mails sent through the list serve. This type of technology used also affects the development of social ties by increasing the competition within the major.

Because opportunities such as scholarships and internships are being sent to everybody within the major, competition naturally increases with the number of people who know about the specific opportunity because, theoretically, the more people who know about a certain chance for personal gain, the more people who will participate. Because of these reasons, the online community of the list serve is an ego network, a network that is centered on an individual, that individual being the adviser who sends the e-mails through the list serve. In contrast to this type of network, a community outside of the virtual world in which I participate in is more of a whole network (Miller, 2006).

A real-life community in which I consider myself to be a part of is my work community at the Gap. In this community, communication has a multi-directional flow, no longer focusing on one individual within the network, making it a whole network. Within this community, there are many different kinds of communication that takes place, affecting the development of social ties in a different way in which technology would. Naturally, communication between co-workers, customers, and managers is different, therefore forming different relationships within the community. Although all relationships within my work community are weak, the weakness factor varies within them, as well as formality. My relationships with my co-workers are definitely a lot more informal than with my managers and my relationship ties with the customers are extremely weak compared to the ties I have with my co-workers and managers. These weak ties do not necessarily harm my relationships, however; several weak tie relationships contrasted to few strong tie relationships increase social resources as well as opportunity within the given community or network. An example of this would be my co-worker, Sam. I am currently in the process of looking at places where I want to live next year at school and I was discussing this with Sam, who lives in the South Lake apartments. With this conversation, I built a resource in which I can go to in order to learn more about living in on-campus apartments. Had I not been a part of my work community and developed a weak tie with Sam, I would have never gained a close resource to go to in order to get such specific and trustful information from (Miller, 2006).

Although these two communities are very different in almost all ways, there is one way in which they are the same. Both the Communication major list serve and the Gap community develop relationships in which opportunity is increased. The list serve does this by informing me of internships and scholarships that are available for the major and my job does this by increasing my weak tie resources as well as developing relationships that may help me within my community at work. By forming a positive relationship with my managers, my chances of getting a raise will most likely increase, as well as the chance of getting the hours that I want. I have learned, from the experience of being a part of both online and offline communities that, if you want to get ahead in life, you should take advantage of your community resources that help you gain positive opportunities as best you can in order to help yourself!

Citations:

(2007, Oct 13). Community. Retrieved October 17, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community#Types_of_community

(2007, Oct 14). Virtual Community. Retrieved October 17, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_community#Increasing_participation_in_virtual_communities

Miller, Katherine (2006). Organizational Communication Approaches and Processes. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education.

Assignment 6: Know Everybody, Trust Nobody

As discussed in last week's blog, privacy is considered to be one of the biggest issues, or concerns, when it comes to new technologies such as the internet. We also agreed that, generally, privacy is your own personal willingness and ability to withhold information about you from others and deciding who can be exposed to this information. This can be done through several online identities. An online identity is a social identity that network users establish in online communities. Examples of these identities include: an account name, identity in voice and language, and the signature. I personally own two of the three of these identities, which include an account name and an identity in voice and language; however, the one that I use most often and is the most familiar to me is the account name.

An account name is the most basic as well as the most straight forward form of online identity. These names occur in the virtual world almost everywhere you go, including e-mail, instant messaging systems, and also on networking websites such as facebook, myspace, flickr, and even the one you are using right now while reading this: blogger. These names that are chosen to be used build a reputation for the user in their online community, making it the deciding factor in whether or not other users should trust the person on the opposite end of the account name.

When using my online account names, I find that I use them most prevalently while using my e-mail account or while instant messaging via AOL Instant Messenger. Because I use an institutional e-mail account which I received from the University, my account name greatly reflects my real name, also affiliating myself with the university because of the domain name @buffalo.edu. Because of this, it is easier for people to identify me through my account name and therefore putting more trust into what my message is saying and also building a good online reputation for myself because of my affiliation through UB. AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) accounts, though, are different. Other programs and sites that are not affiliated with any type of university or corporation are available for sign up for free or sometimes for a fee. These types of accounts are called commercial accounts.

These commercial accounts also require you to make up an account name for yourself, but not requiring you to do so by using your own personal identity in any way. AIM is the most widely used instant messenger service in the United States, providing millions of screen names to people and sometimes several different names to the same person. Although I choose to use a screen name which makes it easy to identify myself through messenger systems such as this one, many people do not. These people may use an account name to specifically deceive others, and quite possibly trying to take on another person’s identity. For these reasons, it is very hard to build a good reputation through AIM if you are using an account name in order to chat with people who you do not know and who do not know you. This is much harder especially if you have a name that does not identify you in a positive, trustworthy way. Many may have more than one account, using one to build a good reputation by having positive interactions with people while using the other to deceive people into thinking that they are somebody who they are not. Once again, privacy plays a role in your identity. You get to choose not only who knows your account name, but what information you divulge to people on the internet through this name. Whether this information is fictitious or not is completely up to the user, making commercial accounts much more dangerous to build a reputation on than institutional accounts because of the amount of trust that you can unknowingly put into somebody over an instant message because of who they may say they are (Donath, 1996). This trust that people put into people who they do not know could even lead to some dire consequences, which were also discussed while talking about online privacy.

Citations:

(2007, Oct 2). Online Identity. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_identity

(2007, Oct 5). AOL Instant Messenger. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_instant_messenger

(2007, Sept 15). Reputation. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation

Donath, Judith S. (1996, Nov 12). Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Retrieved October 5, 2007, from Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community Web site: http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

Assignment 5: Mind your Business

There are many definitions that one could come up with for the term ‘privacy’. To me, privacy is the ability to withhold personal information and possessions from the unknown (the unknown being the entire public or just one person). The real definition, however, can date back all the way to 1791, when Amendment IV was added to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. This amendment simply stated that

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, [therefore securing the privacy of the citizens of the United States of America.]

Then, hundreds of years later, technology and the internet brought a whole new set of problems in terms of people’s privacy, not only in the U.S., but all over the world. These two entities, when put together, define a whole new concept of privacy. This new concept of internet privacy can be described as the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the internet and also to ability to control who can access that information and when. Without proper knowledge and education of internet privacy, many risks could result, including the obtained knowledge of personal information that could result in stalking or identity theft.

Many people, when thinking about things like internet privacy, often think, “it won't happen to me.” This type of attitude is exactly what can lead to an invasion of this privacy on a personal level. This type of attitude is exactly the kind of attitude that I used to carry about the internet, that is, until that privacy was invaded. Not only was my internet privacy invaded, but it was by somebody who I knew and I ended up facing consequences because of how naïve I was about my privacy on the internet. Most internet privacy issues that you hear of among the high school and college populations arise because of social networking systems such as MySpace and Facebook. This is where my scenario begins...

Like most kids my age in high school, I had a MySpace account. On my account I did what every, typical high school girl did: unknowingly posted information and pictures of me on the site without resetting any privacy settings, thinking that, "everybody is doing it" so what would be so wrong with it? Well, the answer to that question is my own stupidity. Pictures of myself that I had posted of me at a party holding a Hard Mikes Lemonade bottle had gotten into the wrong hands and then into the hands of an authoritative figure at the school. This ultimately resulted in me getting a 20 day suspension from the track and field team in which I was participating in because of a violation of the Code of Conduct at my school. My immediate reaction to this was anger: How could this person do this to me? Then came confusion: How did she find this picture if she wasn't my 'friend' on MySpace? Then came the biggest reaction: realization. I had realized that the whole event had taken place because of my own naive mind.

Because of my own personal encounter with the violation of internet privacy, while answering questions such as: What are the biggest issues concerning personal privacy posed by the internet? And: Do I worry about my privacy online? I have concluded that the biggest challenges that the internet poses in terms of privacy has nothing to do with the internet itself, but has more to do with people being very naïve about protecting themselves while online. According to an MSNBC.com survey, 60% of people feel that their privacy is slipping away from them, but in another survey, only 7% do something about it in order to protect themselves. So why does violation of privacy on the internet pose such a threat? Education. People are not getting the amount of education or information about protecting themselves on the internet that they should be, therefore decreasing the awareness of the dangers it poses. So, when answering the question of whether or not I worry about my privacy online, I would have to answer by saying that I don’t worry for myself as much as I do for others. I believe that I am educated enough to protect myself online as much as I possibly can and have also learned from past events in order to do this even more. The people I do worry for, however, is the younger generation. As technology grows, so does the knowledge of that technology in the younger generations. What doesn’t grow with that knowledge of technology, though, is the knowledge of the dangers they could pose in terms of privacy. With technology comes great responsibility to educate about protection of privacy when using these new technologies, especially when it comes to the internet, otherwise, more privacy problems and dangers will continue to arise as these technologies continue to expand.

Citations:
(1791). United States Constitution. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from Cornell University Law School Web site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendmentiv

Internet Privacy. (2007). Internet Privacy. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

Sullivan, Bob (2006, Oct 17). Privacy Lost: Does Anybody Care?. Retrieved September 28, 2007, from MSNBC.com Web site: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/

Assignment 3: Copying Your Way Up the Social Ladder?

Whenever the term, copyright infringement gets brought up, what pops into your head?

Let’s begin by clarifying what constitutes as infringement by referencing one of everybody's favorite research sites, wikipedia: Infringement refers to the violation of a law or a right, which means that copyright infringement, is considered to be violating the laws of copyrighting, or, in general terms of speaking, “the right to copy.”

Now that the meaning of copyright infringement has been clarified, what are some examples of these copyright laws that can and often do get broken?

When talking about different copyright laws, there are numerous different categories that they can be broken into:

1. music copyright laws
2. internet copyright laws
3. photo copyright laws
4. software copyright laws
5. movie copyright laws

What are not included in these categories, however, are the copyright laws that college students violate time and time again, despite the consequences. These laws include the very serious violation of plagiarism. The dictionary describes plagiarism as the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work. College students, specifically, have been known to plagiarize for college entry essays, scholarship essays, and even for something as little as class papers. This plagiarism can range from a few, simple sentences without citations to whole papers being written for people in exchange for money. [cite western courier]. So what are the consequences for these people who do decide to plagiarize? Here at UB, the Academic Integrity Policy states that, when and if a student is caught using any work besides his or her own, the professor has the authority to do any of the following:

1. Warning. Written notice to the student that he/she has violated a university academic integrity standard and that the repetition of the wrongful conduct may be cause for more severe sanctions.
2. Revision of Work. Requiring the student to replace or revise the work in which dishonesty occurred. (The instructor may choose to assign a grade of "I" [Incomplete] pending replacement or revision of the work.)
3. Reduction in Grade. With respect to the particular assignment/exam or final grade in the course.
4. Failure in the Course. To be indicated on the transcript by a grade of "F" without comment.
5. Such other reasonable and appropriate sanction(s) as may be determined by the instructor (or committee at later levels of review) with the exception of those subsequently described under #6.
6. Recommendation of any of the following University sanctions (these require approval at the department, college/school, and Vice Provost levels).
7. Failure in the Course with Citation of Academic Dishonesty: To be indicated by an "F" on the transcript with the notation that the grade of "F" was assigned for reason of academic dishonesty. Only the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education or his or her designee may impose this sanction.
8. Suspension from the University: For a definite term upon stated conditions. Only the University President or his/her designee may suspend a student from the University.
9. Expulsion from the University: With comment on the transcript. Only the University President or his/her designee may expel a student from the University.

Considering all these consequences, you may be asking yourself, why would somebody risk these consequences by not using their own work? Well, I believe that, in this day and age, it’s getting more and more difficult to get ahead in life, especially considering the increase in competition to get into grad school and even after college. Because of this, I think that students are using others’ work in order to get that extra step ahead. Now that technology has come to a point where books are almost no longer needed, the internet is making it much easier for students to plagiarize. The internet makes information on an infinite number of subjects that The Western Courier of Western Illinois University has found have become more accessible to students than ever before, including access to online companies that will charge people for pre-written papers on any subject. This is where plagiarism and Internet copyright laws collide.

Even though this type of copyright infringement occurs all the time, it is unfortunate that the interests of the content creators and of the public good have already been accommodated, only helping the problem and not completely diminishing it. This has been done by the use of citations. Think back on how much you use other people’s work; have you always cited it? What if it were only one sentence taken from a different source? Law says that you much cite it, but did you? The technical structures in order to do this are basically handed to us, making citing such an easy task. Knowledge of copyright laws as well as the correct citing skills are pushed on us in basically every class we take, meaning that an educated society is needed in order for plagiarism to become a less occurring offense. A higher education means a higher social status, so why not become a part of the highly educated population and climb up the social ladder honestly instead of taking advantage of what others have worked hard for themselves in order to climb their own way to the top?

Citations:

(2007, April 18). Academic Integrity. Retrieved September 14, 2007, from Undergraduate Catalog 2007-2008 Web site:
http://undergrad-catalog.buffalo.edu/policies/course/integrity.shtml

(2007, Sept 11). Copyright Infringement. Retrieved September 14, 2007, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

O'Kray, Matt (2002, April 24). Plagiarism plagues college students' essays. Retrieved September 14, 2007, from The Western Courier Web site: http://media.www.
westerncourier.com/media/storage/paper650/news/2002/04/24/Plagiarism.Plagues.
College.Students.Essays-442188.shtml

plagiarism. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved September 14, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism