Last Week!

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

Abelson discusses the Ken Zeran situation in chapter seven of Blown to Bits. Ken Zeran was an artist and filmmaker when someone posted his phone number on an AOL bulletin with an advertisement about t-shirts relating to the Oklahoma City bombing. Ken Zeran's phone number was listed under the contact information, but he had nothing to do with the t-shirts. Ken asked AOL to remove the post and they did so, but the original user posted the same incorrect information again on AOL. After AOL promised to prohibit anymore posts from this user about the t-shirts they did not follow through and Ken's next step was to get the police involved for his protection. Radio stations started to get involved in the case, but later apologized when they realized the true story. As a result Ken tries to sue AOL for defamation, but the court ruled that AOL is held to a different standard then publishers. I would probably follow the same steps as Ken, but take additional steps as well. I would change my phone number and email address so I would not be associated with this incident. Also, I would try to contact higher level employees at AOL so that they would take more action. I would also consider creating a blog to explain my side of the story and try to get other people to defend my side since AOL basically did nothing.


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

In Blow to Bits by Abelson, he discusses the topic of UWB or unltra wide brand radio. On page 288Abelson says that UWB, "splatter[s] radiation all across the frequencies of the radio spectrum". Abelson also explains that UWB uses low power and large bandwidth to carry information in a short time period a small distance. It does this so that it will not interfere with  any normal radio receiver. This technology is used to connect television, cable box and DVD player without having to use any other cables. Also you will be able to transport your music from your computer to your car. It would be really convenient to not have to hook up my ipod to my car radio, since I do not have an audio jack my ipod goes through the radio and you have to keep changing the stations. With this technology it would be a relief and my music would instantly be in my car. Another idea could be sending directions directly to your car, which would be extremely helpful. I always use mapquest and my gps and then decide which directions to follow. 

Week Thirteen

What’s 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 stands for digital rights movement, which prevents infringement of illegally downloading music from the internet. Obviously when you create something you hope it will be successful. When a singer completes a song they are waiting for the revenue from the song. If people are illegally downloading the song then the singer is losing out on the revenue. When the internet became popular sharing music online became a trend as well. People would share music fro free, which is illegal. Soon there were investigations and people were fined for illegally downloading music. Not only were people fined they were arrested. As a result people stopped downloading music illegally and iTunes was created. At a low cost people could download music online without a penalty. Today almost all of my friends download their music from iTunes and I rarely hear of people downloading music form illegal sites. The cost of illegally downloading a song could cost anywhere from $200 to $150,000 according to Abelson. Knowing this information could change someone's opinion about downloading music illegally online. I am sure people still download music illegally online, but there are not that many options as to where to find these websites and there are several restrictions. In the long run I do not think it is necessary to arrest or fine people for illegally downloading music. It takes too much time and effort to find these few people and there is little success or value in charging these people. Even though there are restrictions from iTunes dealing with transferring the music it is much safer and smarter to buy songs from there instead of downloading it illegally.