I have not really thought much about Copyright before coming to college. Im not very tech savy and therefore never really understood what exactly copyrighting applied to and didn't apply to. Hearing friends talk about downloading music from various web sites never struck me as something not to do. So when I came to Madison I decided to begin downloading, little did I know that I would end up getting an e-mail from the University stating they tracked my downloading process and I had to stop or I would be kicked off the UW Internet system. This was the first interaction I had really had with Copyrighting and I naturally freaked out and it ended there.
In thinking further however, I am still unsure as to if watching my TV shows online or not would be considered illegal. I usually use sites such as Hulu which has commercials, so I would assume it is not. Some copyright issues affect me, such as music downloading, while I still feel there are others which I am completely unaware of.
Blog Post Comment #2 - That's really surprising actually...I had never known UW would track that stuff and then enforce against such activity. I suppose that has to do with UWNet serving so many people, and the university naturally wants to cover itself against illegal activity. As for your other point about online television, I don't think watching shows affiliated with the network's website or partner (in the case of NBC, it's Hulu) is illegal, but there are several sites out there like Project Free TV that stream shows without permission of the networks. Of course, there are some deterrents that exist with these sites - slow downloading, viruses, low pixel quality, and the fact that many shows are often taken down quickly - but the ability to get these shows for free, on demand and with no commercials sometimes outweighs the negative aspects of illegal television streaming.
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