Copyright, protection or a curse?

Copyright gives the creator of an original work the exclusive right of distribution, production and adaption of the content. The symbol is well known given that it’s on almost every product we purchase. It appear as copyright has been established as an important right in society to keep the culture and commerce growing. By reading up a lot on the subject and drawing my own conclusions I have come to realize that copyright is not only damaging to progress, but it also prevents ideas from reaching its full potential.

My first thought on copyright was actually positive in favor for it. I believed that the creators would not be able to benefit from their ideas and hard work because somebody would just copy it and take advantage of someone else’s discoveries. But reading news reports about copyright infringement on the smallest details resulting in million dollar lawsuits made me think again. The copyright laws definitely need to be balanced around our time and not the 18^th century. Nowadays copyright is used as a cash-cow for licenses and disputes around patents. Why else would works be patented almost a hundred years after the author dies? The system obviously isn’t the protection it started out as.

I strongly believe that copyright is hurting important interests for us as human beings. To be precise the great ideas that are locked up because of personal interest in for example the environment, medicine and technical evolution. However, if more people had the access to adapt things in their own way we would probably see results much faster.

Today copyright and patents are hotter topics the ever before.  Some are questioning the whole phenomenon and some just want to modify it. Others want to restrict it even further, but there are individuals and groups struggling for a healthier cultural and commerce climate. Among them are the Swedish piracy party and its 46.000 members. Hopefully they will lead the way and lift the curse that is copyright.

Big Brother is watching you

“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” – Benjamin Franklin

 

Those immortal words date back to the 19^th century. Today they are more important than ever. The philosophy of the 21^st century seems to be self-preservation by limitation. Setting up heavy surveillance and restricting the personal privacy is the worst thing you can do to your citizens.

First off there are a few arguments supports added surveillance in society, such as; if you got nothing to hide, you won’t commit a felony if you are being watched and it’s easier to catch criminals. The first argument is a terrible one and should be ignored altogether. I will prove this by giving three counter-arguments:

1.    There are things that aren’t illegal but you want to keep private anyway.

2.    What is legal today might not be legal tomorrow.

3.    People would live in fear that their behavior patterns will look suspicious.

Moving on to counter the second and third argument. There are no statistics showing that added security cameras or other measures have had the desired effect. They are only designed to infuse fear into citizens.

Secondly I shouldn’t have to argue for personal freedom but unfortunately ours and many other governments don’t care about it. In Sweden we have had a few threats to our personal privacy including IB affair, FRA and IPRED. More is on the way, such as laws allowing governments to remove people’s access to the internet. The many positive effects of an open society is the sharing of information, the right to speak your mind without being censored and never have the fear of being watched by big brother.

So the pros and cons of a fascist society are pretty obvious from my thoughts, there really is no good arguments for restricting the personal privacy in order to protect the population. There’s a really good movie that deals with this subject and it’s called V for Vendetta with actors Hugo Weaving and Nathalie Portman. Go watch it now!

Grades

“Without grades it would be too easy to get into the upper secondary education.”

“Grades are good because you can tell if a person is smart or not.”

“Without grades we wouldn’t go to school.”

Those are some of the comments I read about from students in primary school. I suggest that grades are a bad idea designed to privilege some children and be a disadvantage for others. The IUP is a good step to help with progress in school and I would like to see more of it. I will explain why and also counter the arguments claiming grades are a good thing for children.

The youth could have an easy time pursuing the education they really want? We have to put a stop to that! I declare that it would be a good thing if everyone could choose their education without restraints. Some educations require grades beyond reality for a lot of students. But are they really necessary to complete the course/education? Some are harder than others, but the majority of students will probably be aware of what they are signing up for and have some understanding on the content.

First cause for having grades is in most cases to use it as a tool for the teacher to acknowledge a student’s talents. A “VG” In math really displays how capable a student is in that subject? I would say that it doesn’t. It only means you have achieved something, like winning a medal. There’s nothing telling us if he/she can perform the same results if tested again. Besides, I believe that grades are a natural way of dividing us into groups with different and pointless prerequisites for the future.

Second cause for grades is that the student and the parents should know his/her strengths and weaknesses. This is to create an understanding for what they need to practice more and where they are doing well. The problem is that their self confidence can easily be hurt. There’s a strong reason to believe that students, performing good or bad, will always carry that fear of failing.

My solution to grades is not different from what we have right now with the IUP. It would be better if we applied the IUP for the whole primary school. The only difference would be that it’s more detailed in the upper classes. The pros with IUP over a single grade are that it’s possible to obtain a comprehensive image of student’s abilities. Another great aspect is that the IUP is produced with the student, so it’s not something he/she can achieve. Instead it’s a progress.

Good or bad, how the Swedish school will be managed will change with each new shift in government. We can only hope they carry the progress forward.

Climate Change

Lately there has been much attention in the media about the climate change and by lately I mean the years after Al Gore presented his documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. So what were the aftermaths? Well firstly people divided into those who believe and those who don’t. Secondly it’s not an easy fact to accept for those who didn’t reject this theory because it’s a complete change in lifestyle if you want to do something about it. People realizing that global warming is a problem have been slow because of three things: Change of lifestyle, denying that there’s a problem to begin with and economic reasons.

The first reason for ignoring the climate change is that it requires effort to live in an environment-friendly way. You need to think twice about what you buy and the personal consumption should generally decrease overall.

Second reason is that some people simply don’t believe that global warming is happening or is the cause of human influence. To this category I count those who just ignore the problem because it won’t happen during their lifetime.

Maybe the most important factor is how a change in our way of living has on our economy. There are many of industries that have a lot to lose if we have to make changes and will do anything to keep it the way it is. Hiring scientists to invalidate modern theories, buying and closing down environmental friendly alternatives are two ways of doing just that. Others are trying to profit on this new climate wave and I think that those investments are the way to go. 

My conclusion is that there are forces that don’t want things to change, but hopefully people become more aware and start doing more about the situation we are in.