http://vodpod.com/watch/974204-gopalan-nair-us-blogger-arrested-in-singapore

This is just one of the cases of bloggers being arrested in Singapore.
Such an arrests have also taken place as these bloggers have been reported to have written texts and articles that may have the potential to disrupt public peace such as racial harmony.

However isn't the internet supposed to be a place where freedom of speech is being practiced?

If freedom is being defined, than can we still call this kind of freedom freedom?

IF the law defines and put boundaries on our freedom based on an argument of protecting the public peace, is this not an intrusion of rights, thus constitutes as something unethical?

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/XX6m-vwm7p0/

Now I know MJ' long buried, but tribute to his achievements still continue. All Around the world, Flash dances (no, not those showing pee-pees) celebrate the marvellous choreography of the King of Pop.

This particular dance took place in China, but was stopped by the police.

Where is the line drawn between maintaining security and killing festive moods?
If celebration is at the expense of others' comfort or convenience, is the celebration ethical?

Afterall, the people celebrating do have a right to celebrate?

--------

In my opinion, I believe that the salience is always constructed by the people in discussion. Hence, I do not think that we have neglected about women's protection, because if this is so, then what of the Feminist movement?

If I must protest, what about the men?
Why are we not protecting the men, and instead criminalising them?

There are examples of how porn stars made it big in the film industry, for example, Shu Qi?

The question lies, what is the motivation behind protection? Does protection really breed protection, or could there be a possibility that (over)protection can lead to innocence, and naive thinking, thus simplifying our thought processes?

Perhaps, censorship does make stereotypes more obvious.
What about in the event that censorships maybe employed by governmental regulations, which is almost always the case, if you exclude self censorship that is?

When the governmental agencies decides what scenes to cut, what movies to ban, they have already subscribed, and supported certain stereotypes, that perhaps might serve the common good better, or for their own benefit.

In this case, although the censorship does make stereotypes more obvious, but behind these censorships, there are already stereotypes pre-attached to them. =)

I would like to reilterate my point on pornography being an educational tool. I was referring to pornography as a tool to teach you ABOUT sex, as in the know-hows, the different positions, the supposed "correct" procedure. I was not referring to SEX EDUCATION as MOE has decided to call it.

Also, I do not believe that people are born knowing how to engage in sexual activity.

At some point in time, we have been acculturated, or taught that sex is done in a particular way, and pornography might be just one of these ways we learnt how to have sex.

You might say that you heard about it from your friends. But if these speeches are able to conjure up images and concepts in your minds, that are related to sexual activities, aren't these also considered pornography, but existing only in different medium?

I would also like to challenge the notion of "ethical reasons". I do not think it is ethical to ban something that benefits others. For example in the reading, CD 1 was rejected because the censorship was too wide such that it covers other aspects such as the undermining of the internet, and other information such as health-related.

In addition, the only reason why safe sex might be less propogated in pornography is simply because of the mechanism of producers responding to consumer needs, as is mentioned in article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3644303.stm

In this case, unwanted pregnancies might have arose due to pornography.

It is irrelevant to make a causal relation between unwanted pregnancies and pornography, as unwanted pregnancies may have existed even before pornographic material of any kind has been invented.

Taking this a little further, if a married couple, after watching porn together decides to have a go and a baby comes along unintentionally, then is it ethical for them to point towards porn?

We have to take into considerations the contextual meanings and ideologies as mentioned by Weiye in rebutting my previous arguements.

=)

So the question lies in discussing pornography is not with the motivation or gratification behind the consumption of these materials, but rather with what contextual backgrounds we are approaching from?

i would firstly confess that when I examine this case, it is unknown to me that I have been influenced by the ingrained ideology.

But is it possible for us to examine without first applying certain prevalent ideologies?
Who knows? These ideologies will prevail, or might give way. But seeing as it is now, we can take "freeze frame" and analyse it? But saying this would have excluded others, and that in itself is another ethical issue.

while I was watching this video, I suddenly had a desire to share this video with my friends. Then I realised that there are serious ethics issues here. Such is the life of a NM4204 student. 1. Is it alright to video a clip of a live performance? Seeing as I have just spent a couple of hundreds on a ticket, surely I am allowed to bring home some memories. Leaving uploading online aside, is the act of recording infringing on rights? Seeing as it does not harm either party if the clip is stroed in my device, and I viewed at my own time. 2. By us (me that is to say) sharing this file while everyone in the class, have I stepped into the boundaries of infringing on copyrights, seeing as the playback of this clip asynchronously can constitute as a public performance right? In any case, enjoy this song first before you think about these. One of my favourite artist.

According to the readings, one reason why people do not consider illegal downloads as theft is that it does not deprive others of that item. When I download an mp3 file from, the file will not disappear from your computer. This lack of depravity might contribute to the people thinking lesser of downloading file as illegal

I would think that downloading of the music content is neutral. But the legality is of the question. Because we live in a capitalistic society, we are acculturated to think that "taking without permission" is theft, thus illegal.

But notice these music are often downloaded from torrent portals, where the smaller bits of information are "pooled" together to form the actual file? This is no different from a collective society where whatever my neighbour and I have harvested is placed in a central pool, where everyone can access. This neutralizes the legality notion. =)

Moreover, "illegal download" was coined by the big media fishes, whom have lobbied for constitutions such as DMCA and WIPO regulations, thus by imposing the such laws on fellow humans, have the violated the "Golden Rule"?

=)

Magdaleine wrote:
> http://tnp.sg/news/story/0,4136,211631,00.html?
>
> Summary:
> Almost 100% of those polled in survey agreed that thieving from a physical store is illegal and wrong. However about 44per cent of Singaporeans think that illegal downloads of copyrighted material is not considered theft. Yet 80% of them acknowledge that this is illegal.
>
> The authorities here are now studying a new 'three strikes' law to curb illegal downloads. Illegal downloaders will be warned thrice before their accounts are terminated by their Internet service providers.
>
> Problem/things to think about:
> Most people think that because digital media have no physical content (i.e. in digital bits only), it is not as a serious problem as stealing a physical and tangible item from a store or someone else. Many argued that it is similar to borrowing a CD from a friend to listen; they are still not purchasing the CD. Also, it may serve as a "sample" for them before deciding if it is good enough for them to spend their money on.
>
> Without a physical product does not mean the digital content has no value. Digital content are such to save the cost of producing a CD or print a book. It is just another format of displaying the content. So is illegal downloads really unethical? Is diminishing copyrights on digital content worthy a fight?

I think there is a need to investigate the motivation behind using these softwares.
Suppose a writer has recently come across an article that seemingly have plagiarised, thus using the software to check and compile evidences of plagiarisms, and thus seeking redress, it might be justified, Then again, this statement in itself is flawed as it assumes that if a person owns the IP, then s/he has the rights to claim all IP rights, which of course is argueable.

Nevertheless, in the situation where the motivation to using these softwares is that of supervision and protection, it might not be justifiable. Then again, it is important to note, that from an ego-centric point of view, it is ethical.

This brings me to the another point of content, in that we always believe that the notion of innocence until proven guilty. But can we say that this is ethical, seeing as the ethicality of various judicial systems are still in questions.

Bottom line: does one human have the right to judge another human? Does the use of a neutral (again another point of contention) tool such a software better aid us in the formulation of judgements?

Ang Yao Zong wrote:
> " It goes back to the question raised during the virus presentation that police are in jobs because of the thieves. If there's no thieves there wouldn't be a need for police. But is it ethical to assume that people are likely to be thieves and hence warrant the need for police? Chicken and egg."
>
> With regards to the above statement, I have to say that the situation is actually occuring amongst the NUS fraternity. There have been cases where lecturers have doubted the writing abilities of students to come up with sentences that "does not seem to be written by them", meaning that the lecturers actually suspect that the students had plagiarise the paragraph and used it for their own purposes with attributing the proper credits.
>
> Can one say that the presence of software such as Turnitin actually helped to increase the cynicism of lecturers by assuming that all students might have a tendency to plagiarise in the first place?

As is the beginnings of copyright laws, it is to place value on IP so that people will have the motivation and incentive to produce and create even more in the future.

Therefore, by saying the capitalist society has actually diminished IP, it is ironic in that in the course of these transactions, the monetary value of IP has actually increased. As is the case of MJ and Sir Paul Mccartney, the value of these 200 songs have grown by over $450 million.

I would therefore argue, that given that monetary terms is the only tangible benchmark for value, is this enough proof that the capitalist society, who is ultimately built on the foundations of Theory of Demand and Supply, has actually added value and not diminished value of IP.
Ang Yao Zong wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> This article actually reminds me of something that I had originally wanted to post onto the forums regarding the singing of the "Happy Birthday" song.
>
> Take a look at this website: http://www.unhappybirthday.com/
>
> The copyright for the "Happy Birthday" song is not due to expire until 2030 after repeated copyright extensions over the past years, and the copyright to this song currently lie with Time Warner.
>
> However for the case of the birthday song, I think common sense and the overwhelming sense of utilitarianism prevailed in the end. I haven't really seen or heard any reports of claims being made against the violation of copyright over ths singing of the birthday song in public (or is it a case of me being ignorant? hahaha...)
>
> Another interesting thought would be how copyrights seem to be transferrable via monetary transaction. One example would be how (correct me if I'm wrong) the late Michael Jackson actually bought over all rights to songs produced by the Beatles by outbidding Sir Paul McCartney. This I feel, would be in close comparison to what Jude mentioned as IP owners having to pay for using their own IP.
>
> In conclusion, has the capitalist society actually diminished the value of IP since a price can even be placed on a product of thought?
>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYoexSAInQY

Firstly, let me apologise for the exclusivity of the language. I tried looking for an English song but could not recall one.

In any case, when the video reaches the chorus, I am sure everyone will recognize the melody being adapted from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Standard copyright laws states that a work will be protected up to 70 years after the author's death, which means for this case, the copyright for this piece would have expired in 1963.

Along with other adaptations of old classical pieces, is even ethical for present day composers to fish melodies from these music, just to create some new ones?

Shouldn't we acknowledge these composers for their compositions, before lifting phrases to be rearranged into a pop song?

Then again, they are long gone, how do we then justify the copyrights?

And considering for some of these songs, drastic changes have been made, but still recognisable, so how have they infringed on intellectual property rights, assuming it still applies?

Hands up if you have heard about Michael Jackson's death? Hands up if you have followed in his events? Hands up if you think a lot of attention has been accredited to many things, except a deep grief for a lost of such a great musician? The death of the King of Pop has once again resurfaced some of MJ's greatest achievements, but have also brought along many of his other not so, as previously judged by the public, desirable acts such as plastic surgery? Leveraging on this case, does the media (in the broad sense of the word) have the ethical obligation to disclose ALL information about their subjects whom they were reporting on, regardless of the consequences?