Talking to Students About Cyber-Ethics

This is a great article to use before and after discussing copyright and piracy. It reminds me of college, when Napster, Kazaa, and other illegal music downloading companies were being sued as well as individuals who continued to illegally download music. At first I didn't understand why all the musicians and record labels were getting upset, they really couldn't be losing that much profit from one illegal download. After reading this article, "in 2001, 111,000 jobs were lost and $5.6 billion in wages were lost to piracy!" Those are huge figures to swallow! No wonder those music downloading services were being sued! I had a friend in college who was under investigation for illegal downloading, because she had so many music files on her computer that her IP address alerted the FEDS. This site has some great scenarios to use with our students as an introductory to copyright and piracy laws as well as great assessment tools. As educators, it is important to model good ethics. Since technology has become more prevalent in our classrooms, it is important to show our students the proper way to attain information while still giving credit where credit is deserved.