Legal and Ethical Issues

Copyright issues are a minefield. This is caused by the major reason that copyrights are violated or brought into question: money. Greed has lead to legal action and lawsuits filed by major corporations with their large legal teams. Anything that violates their copyrights costs them money, whether it be a bootleg movie or a torrent for a record label's music. The internet changed the way that pirated materials are distributed; next to gone are the days of bootleg discs being sold on the street or by a bus stop, now is the time of torrents and widespread internet piracy. At first the corporations cracked down and a few stories of kids being sued for enormous sums were gobbled up by the media, but they could not stop the tide. Taking out a few children could not stop the flood of information, it was like trying to stop the sale of drugs by putting a few junkies in jail. As long as the head of the snake remains, it will live on.

So recently corporations have taken a new approach and now attempt to shut down sites that host pirated media. An article written just last week showed the ironic results of such attempts to stop internet piracy: (http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/05/copyright-holders-ask-google-to-take-down-their-own-takedown-notices/). This article focused on the take-down notices posted by Google and the information posted with them as they are in the process of being taken down. This information includes direct links to the sites with pirated media before they are completely taken down, allowing people to go to the site and perhaps download the materials and then re-post them on another site. Copyright holding companies such as Universal and NBC have urged Google to take down these notices which are ironically not really stopping piracy as perpetuating the pirated materials existence on the internet. Whether or not Google will comply is unknown but it is unlikely that online piracy will be easily stopped.

Privacy and Security

The evolution of social media has drastically changed the type and amount of personal information available on the internet. From current physical locations tracked through the use of smart phones to post to Facebook to incriminating or private photos appearing on popular social media sites - sensitive information is abundant. Many people are not aware of how to keep such things private and this issue continues to get increasingly complicated; so much so that as stated in an article by Rebecca Greenfield - a family photo of Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook's founder was accidentally leaked onto public Twitter. (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/12/facebook-privacy-so-confusing-even-zuckerberg-family-photo-isnt-private/60313/) If the sister of possibly the most popular social media site cannot even manage to keep her photos private, what hope is there for the average person?

The only true way to keep your private information off the internet is not to post it in the first place. People need to learn to keep their sensitive information to themselves because once something is posted online, it is there forever. If adamant lovers of social media insist on continuing to post, then privacy filters need to become more strict in order to keep photos, text, and other data in the intended circles. Not only do these filters need to be more strict but there must be a push to educate the population on how to use these tools, how to maintain their privacy, and perhaps a reminder what might not be a good idea to post in the first place.