Ethics of Illegal Downloading

One of the many problems with today’s accessibility to technology is stealing other peoples work for free.  Why pay for an entire CD, when you just want two songs and can download them for free?  Many people forget that downloading free music is illegal. Many people feel that they are entitled to free music since many musicians are making millions of dollars a year. Downloading illegal music is essentially like stealing a CD from a store.  Many people however, don’t consider illegal downloading a type of theft.

Really what’s the damage in downloading just one song?  Kant’s categorical imperative suggests that if everyone thought and acted upon it, what would be the result?  So basically if everyone downloaded music illegally, what would happen to musicians and the music industry?  How would they make revenue?

 Is illegal downloading really that wrong? According to Sissela Bok, she described that the first step to do is to consult your conscience and to seek alternatives. If your conscience is telling you “no don’t do this” then listen to it. There are alternatives; most songs are only a dollar to purchase legally, or have a friend make a CD of legal downloads, so then you have the songs that you want legally. 

            Bok’s third step for ethical decision making suggests that people should think about how their actions will affect others.  In the moment, people especially adolescents are not thinking about how their illegal downloading could affect the entire music industry; they are thinking “how can I get my music free and fast.” Decision making grows with age; many adolescents are too immature and naive to see consequences in their actions.

In conclusion, whether illegal downloading is right or wrong, people will most likely never stop till they see that it is a major problem.  For the most part, for anything to stop people need to realize that there is a problem and that it is affecting others. Illegal downloading may seem like a minor concern now, but who knows how this problem may snowball in the future. 

Advertisements everywhere!

I see advertisements constantly every day; I usually just ignore them, but having to do this assignment made me actually pay attention to them.  Advertisements are truly a 24 hour business.

My roommate came home from the mall, and everything she bought had the stores name on it, Hollister t-shirts, and Abercrombie and Fitch to be more specific.  I can’t help but not want to wear any clothing with stores names on them anymore.  I don’t want to give stores advertising by wearing their clothes if I’m not getting paid for it. 

I also even saw an advertisement on the thing you heat a hot pocket in.  This advertisement was for hot pockets new breakfast pockets. The ad was small but you can still see it, if you’re actually looking closely at it.  While I was at work at Target I saw so many advertisement’s everywhere I looked; even advertisements for cat food were even been printed out of the coupon dispenser, with no coupon for the product on the ad.

I also saw so many advertisements on the internet.  Every website I went on had advertisements on them.  On my Facebook, I noticed that a majority of the advertisements were for woman’s clothing and shoes, and for new cars. I thought this was kind of weird because a few of my status updates I made stated that I needed a new car.  It’s kind of shocking how Facebook and advertisers “know what my interests are.”

Another advertisement I found quite random was for “free rehab centers close to you” on CNN.com.  Advertiser’s literally have ad’s for every possible thing, in today’s world.  I think it’s just crazy that advertisements are literally everywhere you go.  I literally cannot even write this blog without seeing an advertisement for “Upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010.”

By doing this blog, I literally can’t go anywhere without ignoring advertisements when I see them.  I think about how attractive some products are compared to others, and that’s the main reason many people purchase them; even if the generic version exactly the same, people are still more likely to purchase the more attractive and better advertised product.

Hobby Farms

The Magazine purchased is Hobby Farms.  The issue more specifically is named “annual poultry issue.”  This magazine was dedicated for the most part to all types of poultry.  Many of the advertisements were tractor sales, brands of poultry feed, chicken incubators, and even live chickens.  This magazine is for small farm, farmers.  The magazine gives advice to people asking questions about how to farm better.  The magazine also did a survey last month and asked the readers if they sold their eggs.  The majority of this survey sold eggs only as a hobby, as a way to get rid of excess eggs.  The magazine also gave a list of company’s name and phone numbers in the directory. This magazine really catches a small chicken farmer’s attention especially.

                The Hobby Farms website publishes a lot of different types of country magazines.  They cater to all different types of small farming and gardening. Their “advertise with us page” says that hobby farming has grown a lot in the past few years due to the internet.  So many people should advertise with Hobby Farm to get their product to more people.  Advertisements can also be placed in more than one website that Hobby Farms own to reach more animal and farm owners.  This is good because if an advertiser has a specific product for a reptile, the ad can go in the reptile issue, instead of the sheep issue.

This magazine does a good job reaching out to people who are interested in hobby farming.  The advertisements are really good because many of these readers don’t know much information on the topic of farming.  The magazine does a good job answering the readers’ questions about farming and raising farm animals.   The “build it yourself” article was also interesting because it gave directions on how to build your own chicken coop.  It looked like a recipe for chicken farmers.  That article also did not have any advertisements, it didn’t say “use this type of wood,” or “use this certain hammer.”  It was interesting how there was no advertisements on that page since it was a big article. 

Al Jazeera: “Obama sets out tax rises for rich in budget: Republicans slam $3.8tn budget, which includes tax hikes on wealthy and new jobs programs, as an "insult to taxpayers"

and “CNN Obama budget: Tax aimed at rich”

It was very interesting watching two videos that were on the same topic, but they were both so different at the same time. Conjecture and interpretation really do play a big role when telling a specific story.

Similarities:  Both videos were talking about Barack Obama’s 2013 Budget tax plans. In both videos, Obama said that everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed in America.  He also stated that everyone should have a shot at making it in America, not just the wealthier individuals. Obama also stated that going to college should not be a luxury; it should be for all people. 

Contrasts: Al Jazeera interviewed Republicans in their video.  The Republicans views and opinions were of course going to differ from Obama’s suggested plan.  Al Jazeera basically wanted to make Obama look bad by having differences of opinion with his suggested plan.  The Republican interviewed did not like or agree with any part of Obama’s supposed budget plan. I think this is biased because they didn’t interview a democrat.  I think they should have interviewed a rich democrat and seen what their reactions and opinions were. Also Al Jazeera mentioned at the end that the rich American’s would be a big threat to this budget and would disagree.  Of course they would disagree; tax increases would be aimed at them. The CNN video had no opposing commentary from any person or differences in opinion.  They made Obama look and sound very good to people.  He sounded very serious about going through with this plan.  I think the Al Jazeera video really just wanted to make our president and government look bad for other nations watching.  The Al Jazeera video made it sound like our government isn’t being run well. 

In conclusion, I think both videos differed a lot from one another, and that Al Jazeera really likes to cause some controversy when they report on events.  Al Jazeera should not always put negative interviews in their reports. 

I would have to say choosing my favorite movie is pretty difficult; I love a lot of movies. If I had to pick my favorite movie it would defiantly be “The Hangover.”  I love this movie, I still quote lines from this movie and it’s a little over three years old.  I really love this movie because it is hilarious for one thing; I also love the actors in it.  It really appeals to me since I am in college, and going out with my friends getting wasted is something myself and all my friends can relate too.  Every time I wake up in the morning on a weekend, I’m always scared to go out into the living room/kitchen area.  This is because my apartment is always trashed the morning after a night of drinking.  When I say trashed I mean trashed, bottles everywhere, friends from home passed out in their clothing from the night before, spuds containers everywhere, and floors that you literally stick too.  I definitely relate to the scene in “The Hangover,” when all the guys wake up and don’t know what happened the night before, and wake up to everything being trashed and broken. 

                Some ways that “The Hangover” is not true are that you probably would not be able to steal Mike Tyson’s tiger and be able to bring the tiger into a hotel room without anyone seeing.  Many people also do not leave their child in a closet, for basically complete strangers to hopefully hear and find.  Also, people usually do not find chickens running around inside a hotel suite.  Similarly, I think it would be quite out of the ordinary to marry a complete stranger; it’s possible but very, unlikely.  Furthermore, counting cards is very impossible, since they put so many decks of cards in the dealers stack. So for “Allen” to be able to count cards and win over $80,000 dollars is extremely unlikely.  Another reason “The Hangover” is not true is because most people do not get kidnapped on their trips.  Then to find out the supposed kidnapped person isn’t even the right person is also even rarer.  Lastly, I love this movie but it is a fictional comedy and is supposed to make people laugh, about things that probably and hopefully will never happen to themselves.