Danielle Provau
The Corsair
Monday, Oct. 29, the Pensacola State College Philosophy Club hosted their 2nd Political Roundtable. The topics discussed and debated included media rights, education: vocational vs. liberal, health care, and American foreign policy.
The moderator, PSC professor Mike Gilbert, sat with six panelists to discuss the growing concerns of Americans with the next presidential election a week away.
Gilbert opened the first discussion on media rights, “A very broad topic, I understand, maybe focusing on the problem of intellectual property rights and piracy.”
Copyright is the legal concept that gives the creator exclusive rights to their creation. Copyright allows limited use without permission, but does copying from the Internet follow that or exceed that copyright use?
The opening statement on media rights was how infringement upon copyright wasn’t illegal because someone was simply duplicating the material.
Throughout the discussion many scenarios were brought up about different aspects and the problems regarding media rights and the Internet.
Jayson Bledsoe, president of the philosophy club, brought up the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement laws.
SOPA was about theft of United States property and restricting Americans from using, sharing, and accessing Web sites that did not comply with the US copyright and intellectual property laws. It did not state specifics on the access or the theft.
The ACTA is a treaty for establishing international standards regarding intellectual property and copyright laws.
SOPA was shelved by the legislature because it was too broad and ACTA was pushed through by President Barack Obama using his executive order.
So, ending the discussion on media rights and moving on to education, the panelists acknowledged the free-for-all that the Internet is providing needs to be stopped.