The Concerned Streamer

In Jason Hardin’s lecture on Tuesday, September 22, we briefly discussed the website called YouTube with regard to how it is used and whether or not it could be considered a copyright infringement. On the one hand, he argued, the information made available on YouTube in the form of movies, music videos, or simple song recordings, could be considered one, giant copyright infringement. After all, many people posting this information did not make—and do not own the rights to—the works being posted. However, Mr. Hardin also mentioned that the idea of streaming, as is usually the case on sites such as YouTube, is not necessarily copyright infringement. Although YouTube users are able to stream—or view—the material, one does not usually have the option to “download” or “save” it. In other words, those of us streaming the music video are not necessarily committing copyright infringement because we are not taking it. After listening to the lecture, I agree with this conclusion: those posting to YouTube are committing copyright infringement if they post copyrighted material that is not their own, but people streaming on YouTube are not because they don’t save or download it—they are only able to view it. Should a user download or save, however, I would consider that to be copyright infringement.

My Network Diagram of Trinity's LAN!

This is my diagram!

Joe Hatch: Mac Safety First!

The part of Joe Hatch's talk last week that I found most interesting was his discussion of Internet safety and identity theft. I have heard that Macs are safer than PCs with regard to viruses and identity theft, and accepted it without considering why or how this was true. As Joe Hatch discussed the importance of installing Sophos on all computers here at Trinity, he mentioned that Macs are not as safe as some people say. After the lecture, I thought about how much of my personal information could be at risk because of that false sense of security. I now realize the importance of installing Sophos while I'm here at Trinity and always remembering to be safe on the Internet, even when I'm on my Mac!