Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Spring 2011/Politics of Piracy (Max Klein and Patrick Berger)/Schedule/4

Readings

Required: P2P Technology – Magee, C. Max. “Confessions of a Book Pirate.” The Millions. http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/confessions-of-a-book-pirate.html

Optional Rob. ”When Pigs Fly.” Demonbaby. http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

Questions

Please answer either of the following:

Confessions

The caterpillar attacks “perhaps if readers were more confident that the majority of the money went to the author, people would feel more guilty about depriving the author of payment.” To what extent is a publishing company’s greed to blame for their loss of readership, and to what extent is this tirade a moral justification of illegal practices?

Optional—Pigs

Does the battle of music distribution and p2p technology online detract from Lessig and Stallman’s wars on the status-quo of copyright? How does p2p help and hurt the efforts of those trying to change copyright (by public image, scandal, representation of critical mass etc.)?

Semester-long project

Look for an article which you want to edit, or find a subject that you want to start, and post it by your username on the home of the coursepage. See the criteria.