Writers and Copyright

            For my text response, I read “The Digital Library Plan: But Not at Writer’s Expense” by Nick Taylor. In this article, Nick writes about how he feels that Google’s new project of having books online is unfair. As a writer, he feels that it is taking money away from the publishers and the writers.
            After reading this article, I see where Nick Taylor is coming from. Authors write books and get them published for their living. Google’s argument says that the writers and publishers should be happy because it will increase their exposure and could possibly lead to more book sales. As this is true, I feel as if that is not completely fair. Sure, it is increasing exposure, but if the book is online for anyone to read, not many people are going to go out and buy it. This in turn means that the author is not receiving money for it.
            Along with Google, some libraries are doing the same because the copyright protections have technically expired. They claim that the amount they are having available to the public is “fair use”. I feel that “fair use” is just the right amount of information that the reader may need, meaning they do not need to purchase it.
            As I feel this new project by Google and libraries is beneficial for me as a college student, needing to find research, I think it is definitely taking money away from authors. This is authors’ jobs and income, and if I am getting to read their work and use their information for free while I should be paying for it, I see that as unjust.

Freedom of Speech

I read the article “The Schools Are Destroying Freedom of Speech” by John W. Whitehead. There were two different examples he used in the article to prove his point that public schools are taking away the first amendment (freedom of speech). The first example was about a young man whom they unplugged his microphone because during a speech he mentioned how the school was like a prison. The other example was about a young woman whom they unplugged her microphone because during her valedictorian speech, when she was supposed to talk about her “success story”, she talked about her religion and Jesus Christ.

I believe these were two extreme cases. The schools should not have unplugged the microphones, especially for the young woman who was sharing her experience and success. It was her story to share and her own way of success. Whether or not her peers agree with it, it is what helped her and that is what the speech is about. Being public schools, I understand they are not supposed to talk about religion because of the variety of students attending, but to take away from her sharing is not right.

For the most part, I feel like most public schools do not take the subject of religion and slight negativity as far as these schools did. They may get punished for using a curse word, but there is no reason to get punished over what you choose to talk about. It is not like kids are walking around pushing their religion to others and pushing them into believing it is the best. Honestly, kids barely talk about religion so there is no point in getting so upset over it and making someone stop on a very important day of theirs.