Copyright, Privacy, Security, and Legal Issues on the Internet

This essay delves into the multifaceted issues surrounding copyright, privacy, and security on the internet. It begins by examining current internet privacy concerns, including data collection, tracking, and the conflict of interest between businesses and individual rights. The essay then explores the ...Read More

Running head: COPYRIGHT, PRIVACY AND SIMILAR ISSUES ON INTERNET
Copyright, Privacy and Other Similar Issues on the Internet
Your Name (First M. Last)
School or Institution Name (University at Place or Town, State)
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COPYRIGHT, PRIVACY AND SIMILAR ISSUES ON INTERNET
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion Questions.......................................................................................................................3
What are the current issues regarding Internet privacy?.................................................3
Which is more important – security or privacy?.............................................................4
What are the copyright issues on the Internet?................................................................5
What are the international legal issues regarding the Internet?.......................................6
Should the Internet be censored?.....................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
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COPYRIGHT, PRIVACY AND SIMILAR ISSUES ON INTERNET
Copyright, Privacy and Other Similar Issues on the Internet
Introduction
Privacy is the freedom from unauthorised intrusion (Merriam-Webster). The modern
world, based on the foundation of the Internet, and ever-advancing technology is different from
all of the human history. Almost everything is instant now, always-connected (Dentzel), and
privacy is usually opt-in (Spivack, 2013) rather than an expected quality of any proceeding.
What has happened is that in today's attention economy (MacMaster), data is the most valuable
asset of businesses. This rush for data of a person (often exchanged free will for free services or
products) is usually in conflict with the interests of the individual whose data is being collected,
stored, and processed. Your attention and information are the ways how companies pay for the
services. For example, Google can provide Gmail for free, and Facebook can provide its website,
applications, messengers for free. The questions then become that how can people safeguard
their privacy, security, and other related issues. These are the topics that this paper will attend.
The paper will look into Internet privacy, compare the importance of security versus privacy,
copyright issues, legal issues, and censorship on the Internet.
Discussion Questions
What are the current issues regarding Internet privacy?
It is often said that in the contemporary society, privacy is a thing of past (Benson, 2016).
Some people are indifferent, while others find themselves at the mercy of the businesses and
societal trends (Hargittai & Marwick, 2016). As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, data about a
person, especially the personally identifiable information, is a goldmine, from which economic
benefits can regularly be reaped for an indefinite period. For example, if advertisers know that
you lean towards animal welfare, the businesses will filter bubble the views, news, and articles
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you see online (Pariser, 2011). Moreover, then, they can sell you merchandise, and products
which lean towards this ideology. This sort of targeted advertising and remarketing is a concern
for most web users as it brings to light how a simple search on a favourite search engine can tag
them, and they are hounded by products related to that search.
The concerns about privacy on the Internet revolve around the topics in which there is
conflicts of interests between the businesses and the individual's right to control access to his
information. These include tracking a user, and identifying him as he browses various sites on
the Internet. The contact details like email and mobile numbers are scraped from public
databases or requested for some legitimate task, but then repurposed for marketing unsolicitedly.
Also, such databases are sold to third-party marketers without the knowledge or consent of the
individual whose data is being exploited for unlawful commercial gains. Another risk is the
stealing of credit card data (Chung & Paynter, 2002). A hidden tracker in the form a tiny
transparent image may be used in email messages to track when the message was opened (and
thus assumed to be read). This covert read receipt also goes against the spirit of privacy.
Which is more important – security or privacy?
Privacy and security have been against each other, and their conflict has only intensified
after the 9/11 attacks on the American buildings (Doherty, 2013) (Schneier, 2008). The tug-of-
war between the two ideals has boiled down to finding the correct balance between the two
(Noble, 2013). To begin, let us analyse the foundation of this conflict. Society and its caretakers
(the government, military, etc.) want to curb people with malicious intents. If such people can
communicate with one another in privacy, then that is a handicap for the powers and may lead to
avoidable losses of human lives, and property. So, this is the argument for the motion of security,
which means reducing the privacy of the population. On the other hand, the human psychology is
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such that power corrupts it, and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Martin, 2017). The fear is
that with the God-like power to eavesdrop on any communication using any means of
communication, of any individual, the chances of the officials becoming corrupt, and invading
the privacy of individuals for their pleasure, or extortion becomes more possible. Also, the
companies running the services would be more than willing to help the governments, as they will
not be able to run their businesses without the powers' blessings. For example, Internet-based
chatting, video-calling, and file-sharing service Skype have been routinely exposing to law
enforcement authorities indiscriminate access to the conversations of Skype users (Kelley, 2012)
(Kelley M., 2013) (Gallagher, 2013).
The opinion of the author is biased towards the security side. The world we live in allows
for far deeper and far wider ways to wreak havoc of any individual, any group, any country, or
any cause. In the earlier days, the only way to harm someone would be to grab a weapon and run
towards him. Nowadays, in addition to government-authorised killings, terrorism is ever-
increasing. Not only that, the ways to hurt now include the plethora of technology, and the
always-on lifestyle makes harming easy - remotely, with the click of a button. So, what does an
individual who has to attend to his work, family, and also keep his sanity by pursuing leisure
activities to do? It is the opinion of the author to delegate the worries, and hand over the
responsibilities to the powers of the government, and the military. Thus, primarily due to
pragmatism, security is more important than privacy (Sterner, 2014).
What are the copyright issues on the Internet?
"If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will", is
how Wikipedia's policy informs editors contributing to the publicly-editable encyclopedia
(Wikipedia, 2005). This statement sums up the state of publishing on the Internet. The Internet is
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a cheap, convenient, and an instant medium, where most of the effort in stealing some one else's
can be automated to scripts, and software applications. Ensuring copyright on the Internet is a
difficult task. It is not a surprise that the Internet is considered the largest threat to copyright ever
since its inception (Copyright Website).
The copyright issues on the Internet begin from the moment the data is sent from the web
server to the client machine. The first concern is that at least four separate copies of the content
are created in the underlying process of visiting a website. This dilemma has been resolved as
acceptable as when an author publishes a website on the Internet, he expects people to visit it,
and the copies created in the memory, disk, browser cache, etc. are considered essential technical
aspects of this process. This consideration gives us an idea of the depth of the issue. On a more
practical note, the issues include peer-to-peer file sharing, illegal download sites, software cracks
and keys, scraping content from some one else's web sites, and similar stealing.
What are the international legal issues regarding the Internet?
The Internet is a technology that levels the playing field for the big businesses, and the
common man alike. Self-publishing is virtually free, instant, and knows no geography or time
zone limitations (Capling & Nossal, 2010). This nature of the Internet gives birth to issues
which transcend international borders. One category of legal matters deal with free speech and
the restrictions on that. The problems are defamation, breach of contract, tortious interference
with business, and securities fraud (Raccine). Another issue is the transmission of data. The
Internet is a packet-based technology (Rouse, 2007), and thus the individual packets of a
message from the sender to the recipient may traverse independent paths to allow for congestion
handling, accounting for broken or new paths, etc. Now, for data which is to be sent and received
with the same country, there is a little political need for it to leave the international borders of the
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country, and laws can be enacted to enforce this technology wise. Money laundering is an
activity that covers multiple countries and uses the Internet as its latest medium. Such money is
often earned illegally and is routed for antisocial, and illegal activities like terrorism. To cleanse
this money, unsuspecting greedy people are offered a fee to route the money from the victim's
bank account. Another issue is the dissemination of prohibited content like child pornography,
peer-to-peer files database (for example torrents) from areas where the laws are lax, and the
victim countries will have difficulty in directly handling the miscreants.
Should the Internet be censored?
Before beginning any discussion on censorship on the Internet, we should distil down
what the Internet fundamentally is. Internet is a communication medium, serving in all of the
one-to-one (for example, email, chat, voice call), one-to-many (for example, posting a message
in a restricted group) capacity, and as a broadcast medium (like advertising on television, or
radio by posting on public blogs, social media sites). What makes the Internet different from the
traditional media is the relative inexpensiveness, near-instant publication, preserving the history
indefinitely at multiple places, and reliable search among the oceans of information (for example
using search engines like Google). The Internet and the commercial interests of big businesses
have enabled free self-publishing, in various forms (text, audio, video) for every person
anywhere in the world.
Now, this poses problems for the powers that are to govern and keep the large population
of people in check, for example, China (Congressional-Executive Commission on China).
Traditionally, authorities have relied on restricting physical movement of individuals, in addition
to limiting or banning media like newspaper, radio, television, shutting off the telephone, mobile
services. Censorship, to stop the flow of ideas from one to another. In some cases, such acts are
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for the benefit of the nation. On the other hand, similar to the theme of power corrupting the few
who hold it, such bans aid in maintaining power, even if the national interests are being
subverted by those who are supposed to protect them. In such instances, any censorship will
amount to withholding basic human rights. Specifically, the Article 19 (International Council on
Human Rights Policy) lays the right to seek, receive, and impart information with no regards to
media, and no regards to borders. Such a definition includes all forms of communication, as
existing today, and any in future.
The author of this paper strongly aligns with the human rights stance, and advocates
against the censorship of the Internet for the reason that governments are installed to serve the
people, and general information flow should not be a concern for authorities which are
discharging their fiduciary responsibilities well.
Conclusion
The average Internet user's habit of free things - which cost real money to develop, and
provide - has resulted in a tacit system of exchange in which the individual's data and attention is
taken, and a (useful in itself) service is provided. This one transaction underlies most of the
issues at hand in the tug-of-war between user privacy, and the businesses. Also, governments
have their axes to grind and use their powers to snoop on their citizens. Overall, privacy is a
feature that appears to be inconsequential to the masses, with opportunities for businesses to
capitalise upon.
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References
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Capling, A., & Nossal, K. R. (2010). Death of distance or tyranny of distance? The Internet,
deterritorialization, and the anti-globalization movement in Australia. The Pacific
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Chung, W., & Paynter, J. (2002). Privacy issues on the Internet. Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii
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Gallagher, R. (2013, October 11). Skype under investigation in Luxembourg over link to NSA.
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/11/skype-ten-microsoft-nsa
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