Week 6: Thing 15

For starters, this "Disney" video on copyright (and therefore plagiarism) is very funny and could be used in class easily. It's a little annoying after a while, but it gets the idea across to the viewer that copyright is a tricky subject that people dabble in all the time. It could work as a great tool in dealing with "borrowing" ideas from other students and the web.
It asks for a way this program has been modified, and that can clearly be seen with our current approach. CBHS has adapted this course, designed our own website, and is implementing it in such a way as to benefit us and our needs. I think this is a great thing (done with permission) in this world of web 2.0.
As far as how this will change our world... based on some of the articles here and a few others I've read recently, it's becoming clear that the world of ebooks and other PDA devices will change the way we consume "books". There will be a new world of non-printed print media, printed books on demand to reduce waste and overstock, and a debate over the copyrighting of online work. One place this will be problematic is the production of fiction. Will authors still write and get paid to publish? Will people still buy books? or will people follow authors and writing genre's online through the purchase of (or free sharing of) online literature? How will newspaper (I use the term "paper" loosely) journalists get paid? There is already a problem with journalists (again using the term loosely) who get their stories from real journalists (employed by the NYT for example) who then read them and turn them into secondary sources of news without compensating the original reporters (who are often risking life and limb for a story). These are all problems that are going to change the way libraries stock information, the way people write, publish, and produce work. Finally, it will change the way they get paid (or don't get paid) for what they do. The question was posed in one article I read today, will fiction writers get paid again for their work, or will they simply write and share it for free on the web. Perhaps a better question is, is this a good thing, bad thing, or just a thing all together?