The Internet is a vast computer network which links other computer networks worldwide. All of these networks follow a set of communication protocols. The word Internet comes from the words Interconnected Networks. We can find anything in the Internet; from governmental sites to certified scientific investigations. However, the Internet is not an all free space. Many webpages violate some authors' copyright. This is often known as plagiarism or piracy (depends on the context). That is why people have to be informed on what can and cannot be done in the Internet. For doing so it is important to know terms such as plagiarism, copyright, free and private software and the SOPA law.
Plagiarism is copying from some document and using or publishing that information with your signature. Copyright helps authors prevent plagiarism, since they protect their online property from others who want to use the information for their own profit. Piracy, on the other hand, is when you reproduce multimedia like tv programs, music or movies illegally. Both of them are indeed bad because people are taking somebody else's work, and in some cases making money out of it. The government penalizes both of this actions; from banning students from your institution (schools, colleges, universities) to imprisoning people for stealing someone else's ideas.
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| The Copyright symbol, represented by a circle with a capital C |
The SOPA law (Stop Online Piracy Act) was intended to end piracy online to protect authors' copyright. This law never passed since people oppressed it. Sites like Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, and many others promoted stopping the SOPA law from being passed; if it had, then these sites wouldn't exist nowadays. In the United States, SOPA was a really big deal. After all, the first days the Congress mostly approved the law being passed, however days later, people contacted and tried to convince their representatives. In the end, the Congress mostly disapproved SOPA. People believed that the Internet was, as Aaron Swartz had said "free and open to everybody" (taken from Aaron Swartz from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
Softwares play an important role within Internet liberties and plagiarism. A software is a set of programs used to operate computers. Unlike hardwares, they focus on the computers' systems, while hardwares are more on the physical aspect of the computer. There are two types of softwares: the free softwares and the private softwares.
The free software respects the freedom of its users online. Freedom means that the community can edit the software to use, add, distribute or improve it. The word free can sometimes be replaced for the word libre since free software doesn't actually mean it is free (costless). A private software is the one that doesn't respect its users liberties, it in a certain way it dominates them. This type of software tends to harm its users, since it imposes them lots of parameters they cannot adjust to their own liking.
The issue with all of these terms, generally the Internet, is that there are people who want to make the Internet a private place, where people can't access to information as easily as you normally can. The SOPA and the PIPA (PROTECT IP Act) laws had the intention of banning certain webpages that trespass intelectual property. This benefited a small percentage of the population; specifically those who feel threatened by piracy and plagiarism. However, most of the people would not allow the Internet to be censored, they fought against these laws and managed to stop them. Those who fought are the ones that claim that softwares should be free/libre, after all private softwares want their communities to work based up on their terms and conditions.
To sum up, the Internet is something controversial. There are those who want it to remain free and others who want to fight against the ones who steal others' properties. These positions are taken upon the benefits they gain. Of course authors want these types of laws to pass since they want to protect their work, they want profit from it; not letting others gain money from their work. People who want to access that information for different purposes like intelectual or educational purposes are going to disapprove these laws, because they want to get access it. Maybe if it is obtained fairly; by subscribing to a website or paying a monthly installment it would be better, but the proprietaries sometimes commit imprudences against their clients, like making them pay more than needed. I think it is something we should be aware of and very attentive because this is something that concerns us all, the Internet is one of the most trascendental things in our time. The decisions taken should be important to all of us.
Bibliography:
- http://www.copyrightfrance.com/hypertext/image_copyright.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz




