Comments on: Erecting walls for music and news

By: Mariya Wilson

Mariya Wilson — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:18:04 +0000

Kaley Lindquist’s comment on Dr. Willis’ blog was catching: “Consumer driven sites thrive because they are easy.” This I would have to say is wholeheartedly true with Napster as a testimony. For one, it was very interesting how you said that “User-generated content isn’t the problem. It’s the solution to the problem the traditional media didn’t know it had”–the public drives change. Shashdot has been able to harness this problem by allowing the public to drive change. It seems that what traditional media might deem as unprofessional, the public could care less about where the content comes from…if it is easy, interesting, and informative it is worthy. Without consumers there would be no need for any content. By allowing consumers to post content, yet at the same time creating consumer-to-consumer boundaries, businesses have the potential to thrive as Shashdot has the potential to do so.

By: Kaley Lindquist

Kaley Lindquist — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 05:08:54 +0000

Let’s be honest- everyone wants to get paid for their work, no matter how much money they already have or are already making. If a music group or recording company are missing out on a key source of revenue (in this case music downloads from napster), they are going to be upset and want their fare share or throw a fit. “According to King, the music industry was just flat wrong when they didn’t think people would be willing to pay to download songs. The problem was they just didn’t have an easy way to pay for them, let alone find the music in the first place.” Napster and napster creator was not setting forth with the intention to steal money or break the law, obviously. The simple premise of the whole idea was to give the people what they wanted and make it easy for them to do it. If there was a simple, straight forward, no questions about it, way to pay a reasonable price for the music that napster was offering, most consumers would still be on board. Regardless, napster was a trail blazer for other similar sites and information sharing sources. Consumer driven sites thrive because they are easy.

By: Leia Smith

Leia Smith — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 21:19:40 +0000

Shawn Fanning’s music file sharing website, Napster, serves as an excellent example of ethics in the media. Downloading free music files in as great of quantity as they could, users were suddenly afforded the opportunity to access nearly any song they sought, free of charge.

Tie this scenario into the two categories of ethics and it is evident that an argument can be made for both sides. Deontological ethics would suggest that Fanning would not have created the site had he followed “good rules”. In other words, as a citizen, he was duty bound to follow the rules laid forth by the music industry and their anti-piracy guidelines.

On the other hand, those following teleological ethics would say that Fanning shouldn’t have taken part in this act because of the consequences such as potential jail time and fines in addition to the profit losses incurred by the record companies. What is interesting, however, is the fact that Napster was bought out even after it had been shut by the courts meaning that the Fanning’s fame and profits were positive consequences to his unethical behaviors.