In the past thirty years, the rate of technological innovation and technological adoption have had a drastic influence on how society functions. At first, these technological advancements were easy for governments to effectively influence by applying legal bounds to them. However, as their adoption increased internationally, these advancements expanded beyond the original parameters and have left governments divided with burdensome issues to solve. In recent events, countries around the globe have had to face issues with net neutrality, Internet piracy, intellectual property, and Internet content restriction. Authoritative organizations in different countries have proposed solutions to handle issues viral technologies such as these with different legal approaches ranging from a strong influence to no influence at all. Each decision enforced on these topics has had and will have drastic effects on Internet service providers, large and small businesses, and consumers. As technology continues to develop and issues impend over countries, nations will have to decide how much influence they will have on technology.
Net Neutrality
The most prominent of these developing technologies has been the Internet. Originating as a means to share files, this government-funded project has evolved into an essential facet of life. The most important aspect of this necessity is the healthy competition that exists among businesses. This competition is fairly complex and requires a considerable amount of government regulation; this is known as network neutrality or more commonly known as net neutrality. Net Neutrality is the belief that all content on the Internet should be treated equally. The concept arose as a way of preventing those who...
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...beneficial to future projects as a way to defend the stance for the bills. Arguments backing up the bills are much harder to find than articles bashing the bill and this could be used in the bigger picture stance of not only SOPA and PIPA but online piracy itself. (WJL)
Josh Lincoln
Morrow, Will. "Chinese Government Imposes New Internet Censorship Law." World Socialist Web Site. N.p., 7 Jan. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. .
"Pirate Bay Appeal Is Rejected by Finnish Supreme Court." BBC News. BBC, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. .
Lee, Dave. "North Korea: On the Net in World's Most Secretive Nation." BBC News. BBC, 12 Oct. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. .
Copyright Act, R.S.C. 2012, c. C-42, s. 29.22-29.5. Print.
At the beginning of 2012, a series of coordinated protests occurred online and offline against Stop Online Piracy Act Bill (SOPA) that expands U.S. law enforcement’s ability to combat online copyright infringement. As this protest involved many influential websites like Google and Wikipedia, it certainly draws national attention on SOPA. Whether censorship should be used online against online materials infringing property rights, as included in SOPA, is the controversial issue. Even though SOPA eventually was terminated by the Congress, things behind SOPA cause further debates. The relationship between censorship, free speech and copyrights in this bill is worth discussing. In SOPA, copyrights are enforced by censorship, but censorship at the same time violates free speech. Although SOPA’s online censorship on unauthorized online material is an effective method to protect internet copyrights, it resistants innovation and compromises freedom of speech.
Deva, Surya. “Corporate Complicity in Internet Censorship in China: Who Cares for the Global Compact or the Global Online Freedom Act?” The George Washington International Law Review. Washington, DC: The George Washington Intl Law Review. 2007. Web. 31 Jan., 2011.
North Korea is notorious as the “Hermit Kingdom”. Defensive and secretive to the point of paranoia, its history as well as its present conditions remains shrouded in mystery. What little we do know can be murky at best. The central govern...
Anonymous, . "What is known about North Korea's brutal purge?." BBC News Asia 13 12 2013, n. pag. Web. 10 Mar. 2014. .
When Tim Berners-Lee created the Internet as a non-proprietor, not-for-profit information conduit, he could not have predicted how controversial digitized intellectual property would become. Prior to the Internet, intellectual property was a fairly straightforward issue. It was protected with copyright, trademark, and patent legislations, which granted exclusive rights to owners. Violations were not as abundant because distribution was constrained by time and space. Moreover, violators were identifiable because anonymity was difficult to achieve. In today's "global village" however, digital information such as books, music, software and art can be instantly shared between two anonymous users, without any fee to the creator. Legislation is much more difficult to enforce.
Internet is a powerful tool that allows users to collaborate and interact with others all over the world conveniently and relatively safely. It has allowed education and trade to be accessed easily and quickly, but all these benefits do not come without very taxing costs. This is especially true when dealing with the likes of the Internet. Countries in the European Union and Asia have realized this and have taken action against the threat of net neutrality to protect their citizens, even at the cost of online privacy. Internet censorship is required to protect us from our opinions and vices. Every country should adopt Internet censorship and regulation since it improves society by reducing pornography, racism/prejudice, and online identity theft.
My concerns about Internet censorship prompted me to write "Internet Censorship is Absurd and Unconstitutional." In the essay, I outline why I believe that the Internet should not be censored in any way for two reasons. First, any law advocating censorship of the Internet is too broad and unenforceable on this global information medium. Second, Internet censorship is a breach of First Amendment rights for those users residing in the United States. The essay will provide insight into why self regulation is the only viable solution to the problems that have and will be presented to the Internet.
Throughout the global media North Korea’s isolation and Harsh rule has become increasingly secretive, although some facts have been detected (“North Korea Profile”, 1). According to data collected from The Guardian, eighty-one out of one-hundred people in South Korea have access to the internet, yet in North Korea around .1 out of one-hundred people have access to the internet . Not only is the greater population of North Korea disconnected from outside sources, yet leaders in North Korea are also isolated from outside sources; putting themselves at a disadvantage. North Korea may launch a war, but they are unaware as to what they are up against because of its secrecy . Around one million are serving in the North Korean Army, but when South Korea’s army; combined with the U.S’s army (their ally), the ratio of the North Korean Army is signi...
Thornton, P., (ed.) (2010), ‘Censorship and Surveillance in Chinese Cyberspace: Beyond the Great Firewall’ In Gries, P. H., and Rosen, S., (eds) Chinese Politics (London and New York: Routledge).
Xu, Beina. "Media Censorship in China." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
Since the WTO never defined “public interest” or “national security” in means of limiting their own states network, this leaves full rain for China (Mengin73). World community through the WSIS in both Geneva and Tunis had deemed both the United States and China are correct in the realm of Internet governance (Saleem 328).
Rosenthal, Elisabeth. "China Lists Controls To Restrict the Use Of E-mail and Web." The New York Times, 27 January 2000. Retrieved 26 April 2004.
Recently, the World Wide Web has come under fire from various forms of censorship. Singapore has been a giant of aggressiveness in regard to censorship and technology. But even with Singapore’s relentless efforts for control of the World Wide Web, the public still seeks to stay informed on every issue that concerns mankind. “As a new technology the Internet defies censorship because of characteristics such as information explosion, de-massification, convergence, computer culture, and globalization” (Kolko 424).
The first reason why downloading and uploading copyrighted materials from the Internet should be legal is that downloading copyrighted materials positively affects the economy. The European Commission Joint Research Center reported that the profits of music companies would be 2% lower if uploading and downloading copyrighted materials were banned. However, music companies are able to acquire more profits despite illegal downloading because many people tend to purchase CDs or DVDs after watching or listening to copyrighted materials for free. Moreover, the research showed that people who download music illegally spent more money to buy music than people who did not download illegally. In addition, research conducted by the Swiss government informed that one-third of Swiss people downloaded copyrighted materials from the Internet because personal use of copyrighted materials is legal in Switzerland. Even though there is a fact that many people can download copyrighted materials from the Internet legally in Switzerland, the amount of money that people spend to buy copyrighted materials is not f...
Today, society is affected by the many advances in technology. These advances affect almost every person in the world. One of the prevalent advances in technology was the invention and mass use of the Internet. Today more than ever, people around the world use the Internet to support their personal and business tasks on a daily basis. The Internet is a portal into vast amounts of information concerning almost every aspect of life including education, business, politics, entertainment, social networking, and world security. (idebate.com) Although the Internet has become a key resource in developing the world, the mass use of Internet has highlighted a major problem, privacy and the protection of individual, corporate, and even government security . The argument over whether or not the Internet should be controlled by the government has developed into a controversial issue in almost every country in the world.