Ken Zeran

1.      What might you have done differently if you were in the position of artist Ken Zeran, mentioned in this chapter?

If I were Zeran I would have tried to take more legal action. I think Zeran’s case is similar to the anti-abortion group case. The anti-abortion group posted personal information like names, addresses, and license plate numbers of doctors who performed abortions on the “Nuremberg Files” website and because “true threats of violence were made with the intent to intimidate” (251) towards doctors on that site, the group was found liable. I know Zeran’s case was different in some manners but some of his personal information was also used (name and phone number) and was used as a hoax; but one where he actually got threatening phone calls. AOL didn’t take immediate action and with the fact that Zeran felt he needed security around his house for that week shows this was a serious matter; one that clearly should have had more legal action take place. I know AOL isn’t a publishing company so they technically didn’t do anything, but I still don’t understand how the anti-abortion group got charged and AOL didn’t. I would have tried to get a lawyer and taken more legal action, or maybe even started a blog like we saw in the cell phone story in Shirky’s book so at least people would see how AOL can be used against them and what the company will and won’t do to help protect you against something like this happening to you personally. A blog could have gotten more people involved so maybe legal action would have been taken against AOL.

UWB Radio

What might you so with access to UWB radio transmissions if you had a receiver in a car?

Ultra Wide Band, or UWB, radio uses very low power and is able to not interfere with any conventional radio receiver. This technology would definitely be very useful and convenient. That would be so cool if you could upload pictures or write emails or download songs straight to your car without having to worry about having a connection to your internet or dealing with your phone's signal to be strong enough to get wifi access. Although I don't completely understand the whole technological side about it completely, this UWB radio sounds very cool and sounds like it could help a lot of people if they were for instance stuck on the side of the road and needed assistantance. It could even save people money because you wouldn't have to worry about buying mp3 players to take along with you in the car or buy a GPS system because you could just simply access it through your radio. Hopefully this whole UWB radio will come along soon or at least soon enough that our generation will be able to use it because I definitely would like to try it!

DRM: Good or Bad?

What is the value of a bit? It seems that going after folks who have traded songs or movies online is a huge expenditure of effort and money. Is DRM-protected content the way to go? If you don’t agree, propose another method for the distribution of digital multimedia so that content creators can still be compensated.

DRM, according to Abelson (2008), stands for digital rights management and DRM-protected content is content that has a wide range of restrictions to keep people from using that information in any way that would be illegal. Reading about DRM in Abelson’s book I learned that just like everything else, DRM has both its advantages and disadvantages.

I think it’s good that someone has come up with a way to help stop those from illegally downloading massive amounts of black market music or those trying to sell copies of illegally downloaded movies, we definitely needed some system to help stop those people since it became so easy with the rise of the internet. On the other hand, DRM and its restrictions may be a little too much, even though it is doing good. I would be disappointed if I wasn’t allowed to go onto a website, like Pandora for example, and just listen to music without having to buy it beforehand just to see if I like the song or the music that I like. I don’t see any problem with this if I don’t plan on somehow illegally stealing those songs, but with DRM in place this wouldn’t be allowed because the restrictions would stop my computer from playing that music. Stuff like that I think has gone too far and where I think the DRM system breaks down. Overall I think DRM is a good thing because without it people have that much of an easier time stealing and copying whatever they want whenever without having any obstacles in the way and that ultimately hurts everyone. I think the only suggestion I would have is to continue working with the DRM system to make positive change that make more restrictions to make it harder for those to encrypt and work around the codes but at the same time have less restrictions on things like not being able to view a video or listen to a song online. The only problem to this suggestion is that I don’t even know if it’s possible because if it is they probably could have come up with that system by now; maybe one day they will.