Talk:Ethics of file sharing

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Although I don't share your opinion, it belongs on Wikipedia according to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Your emotionalism doesn't belong on Wikipedia at all - see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine. So I tried to separate the opinion from the emotional propaganda. As for "Delete this and you'll see it again", well, I didn't delete it all this time, so maybe you won't eventually need to learn about Wikipedia dispute resolution. Art LaPella 22:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Why?

This article reads like a high school essay.

If "Why?" means why didn't I delete more radically, I wouldn't object if you did. Art LaPella 02:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Cleanup

To me it seems like the writer was a bit biased. Or at least the article tends to sound that way in certain parts. I'm going to see if I can try and work on it a little bit to make it not only sound more NPOV, but also more professional.

Anybody mind if I just work on this article from the ground up? --Cronodude360 20:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds better so far. Art LaPella 01:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Well I did what I could, but I still think something's missing. The article is a lot shorter than it used to be, but I don't think I lost anything major in the rewrite. Since I tried to stay fairly unbiased, I decided to remove the POV tag. If you guys think that it's still biased, feel free to put the tag back on.
Anyone else want to take over from here?--Cronodude360 02:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the cleanup tag and added a few things but I'm leaving the stub tags on for now. There's a lot more that could be said here; I'll try my best to get some references. --Happynoodleboy 17:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The concluding paragraph is fairly biased. It clearly takes a position, saying that file-sharing is "in the end" justified by calling it a "great" resource and saying that it is a "great way for people to grow their tastes" (although the author notes that it is "up to the individual to decide"). It also does not fit in the section. I'm commenting it out for now, if others disagree it will still be there? --Carkey 05:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree it might sound biased, but it does correctly state what file sharing is, a source for obtaining free media. Maybe if the word great was taken out it would sound better.Mderrick 01:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Article

As has been talked about before on this page, this article is very simple and could be expanded a lot. I was thinking of totally rewriting this article. I already have a 6 page paper, written for an english class, on this subject and was thinking of putting a form of it on wikipedia. I will try to make sure this is unbiased and has sources to back up what is said. I can start writing it and you guys can tell me what you think. --mderrick 08:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I have made some changes to the article and am planning on posting the new article here very soon. Go to my user page to see the changes.--Mderrick 01:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
I finished rewriting the article and posted it, I hope you like it. I tried to keep it unbiased by giving both sides of the issue and fair shake. I also removed the stub tags, but feel fee to add more or edit if you feel it is needed. --Mderrick 05:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] piece of paper??

the bit about copying whole copyrighted songs on a hard drive being equivalent to jotting down quotes on a piece of paper, while cute, is complete nonsense IMO. I'm all for filesharing and the downfall of the current copyright paradigm, but this just makes the filesharing demographic look bad. The major difference between the two is fair use, please look into it. Copying a movie is infringement, quoting it or parodying it is fair use. It sounds like this argument is getting into a far broader and less cut-and-pasted issue, that of whether ideas can be owned. Like the indian chief said, "how can you own the sky?", the issue of owning music, it can be argued, is similarly flawed. If noone objects I'm going to delete this later, when I'm not slacking on the job *shhhh*. malenkylizards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.196.108.39 (talk) 19:02, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

  • I wouldn't call it nonsense, but I agree that the article is a bizarre collection of factoids and opinions which create something that isn't really an article about ethics ("the plural of anecdote is not data"). In fact I'm not sure I believe that a sensible article with this title can exist, because as you say, it's actually about the whole concept of IP and whether ideas can be owned - so all that stuff really belongs in the main IP article. What's left would just be current legal positions in various countries, which are in the main file sharing article (plus the separate one on Canada). Magnate (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree that comparing writing quotes down to copying a movie or song verbatim is nonsensical. Writing down a quote would not constitute copying a substantial part of the work whereas making a verbatim copy of the entire work would. 84.9.109.96 (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)