Yesterday, I did some research to find useful websites on IPR which is an acronym for “Intellectual Property Rights”. But what is intellectual property? To answer this question I tried to search for material that could help me in understanding the issue. Then I find own-it whose latest news, dated 14th April 2009, was titled “What is intellectual property?” Experts of this Website define IP as a way of classifying “most of the world’s creative output and content (including possibly yours)”. As they exemplify, products, inventions are protected by patents and design rights; literary, artistic and musical work are protected by copyright; and brand names, words, sounds and even smells are protected by trade marks. Moreover, by saying “all your mental and creative outputs can be transformed into tangible ‘commodities’ so that you license, sell, trade, divide or retain rights to those commodities.”, it seems that they want to catch the attention of any readers who wish to create or invent something new (for quotes see :http://www.own-it.org/knowledge/what-is-intellectual-property).However in the same webpage, what interested me mostly was a short article titled “Harry Potter downloads spell trouble for e-book site”. This article explained how the three famous writers Ken Follett, Aravind Adiga and JK Rowling have publicly criticized the site Scribd.com for hosting copyright material. Now, Scribd.com is also one of the bookmarks I have in my delicious account and from he article I’ve learnt that even though Scribd’s policy, like You Tube’s, provides for the removal of copyright infringing material, it does not actively monitor hosted content. Anyway, I hope there will be a solution to the problem because, as it is said in the article, Scribd’s policy is to remove copyright material when notified of it, but also, in my opinion, remains to be one of the best alternatives for students of having an idea on books they really need to buy.
Another important thing I’ve learnt so far is to protect my files using Flickr.com that you can find at http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-nc-nd-2.0/
Once, in one of my postsblog I downloaded an image from my computer. Then I clicked on this image with the right button of the mouse and what came out was the window with different options including “Save image”. Therefore, I realized that even unknown persons, who happened to visit my blog, could take my image and use it without carrying about my “creative intellectual property”. As suggested on Blogging English webpage of our mentor Sarah, one possible solution would be to protect files by registering myself on Flickr.com, a website that adopted Creative Common License, that is to say I can share files and protect them by deciding what others can do with my work. Here by uploading an image, the file would become public and therefore visible to anyone, but at least given a minimum of protection guarantee. Let’s see if it’ll be worth of ;-).
See you soon!
Arianna
Hello Arianna!
RispondiEliminaI had a look at Scribd.com and I searched Harry Potter: I found only a French version of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", which was not complete. I don't know how Scribd.com works but I think the material updated on this website is controlled in some ways. For me, it's necessary to protect copyright material but free reading can be a way for authors to promote their books and for readers to have the opportunity to have access to a wide range of works.
As far as language is concerned, here are some things I noticed on your post:
• "useful websites on IPR which is an acronym for" : I think there's something wrong in the use of "which". Is it a defining relative clause? If it's a defining relative clause you should use "that"...
• "literary, artistic and musical workS are protected by copyright; and" : you should put something like "finally," instead of "and" because you use "and" inside the previous item of the list and thus it can't be used to link two items.
• "Now, Scribd.com is also one" : avoid the use of "also"!
• "as it is said in the article," : it's a mistake I used to make! You should write "as said in the article".
See you in class next week,
Ilaria.
Hi Arianna,
RispondiEliminathank you for your analysis about IPR and Plagiarism. I found it very useful, because after the lesson about these topics, I felt very interested and I chose more material. I had a look at the Web Sites you proposed, in particular the first one with the article about IPR. 'Useful' and 'interesting' are the adjectives I can use to define it.
On the other hand, agreeing with Ilaria, I found Scribd.com quite incomplete and not always easy. I had a look to Google Books, too. I think it is better if you want to have an idea of the book you are interested in (especially if you want to buy it). Scribd.com and Google Books are similar for this purpose.
What about the language you used?
Well, Ilaria wrote quite a lot abou that, I agree with her. I only need to underline a doubt: you wrote "material that could help me". I would wrote "material that CAN help me". I don't know if it's a REAL mistake. I don't think so, it only sounds me better ;-)
See you tomorrow!!!
Martina