Comments on: Is Copyright Still Respected? http://www.anthroblog.tadmcilwraith.com/2006/04/28/is-copyright-still-respected/ For the Anthropology of British Columbia, Canada Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:06:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Tad McIlwraith http://www.anthroblog.tadmcilwraith.com/2006/04/28/is-copyright-still-respected/comment-page-1/#comment-2285 Tad McIlwraith Tue, 02 May 2006 17:31:55 +0000 http://www.anthroblog.tadmcilwraith.com/2006/04/28/is-copyright-still-respected/#comment-2285 In a mad fit of deleting spam, I also deleted Jamie's comments. Here they are. I think that the thing that keeps me downloading is the fact that libraries (both university and public) are too underfunded and out of touch to keep up with the information that is available. If I could borrow the books, audio, and videos that I need from the library I would do it, but they just don't have them. As a result, I have to download everything via bittorrent. A perfect example is my recent downloading of a bunch of Boas's texts in PDF format from a torrent site because the library at my university either didn't have them or had them on seemingly permanent loan to some grad student. The story is the same for anth videos which I often have to download because I can't afford the $500 dollars to buy them to watch once. This reminds of something that is often overlooked in debates over downloading an copyright, namely, the temporary nature of the downloads. In the last few years I have probably downloaded over a terabyte of stuff, but right now I probably have less than a a gig of it on my computer. The stuff I do have will probably be gone by next week once I have watched it. For me downloading is like borrowing from a library. Once I am done watching something I delete it. If I need it again I redownload. In a mad fit of deleting spam, I also deleted Jamie’s comments. Here they are.

I think that the thing that keeps me downloading is the fact that libraries (both university and public) are too underfunded and out of touch to keep up with the information that is available. If I could borrow the books, audio, and videos that I need from the library I would do it, but they just don’t have them. As a result, I have to download everything via bittorrent. A perfect example is my recent
downloading of a bunch of Boas’s texts in PDF format from a torrent site because the library at my university either didn’t have them or had them on seemingly permanent loan to some grad student. The story is the same for anth videos which I often have to download because I can’t afford the $500 dollars to buy them to watch once.

This reminds of something that is often overlooked in debates over downloading an copyright, namely, the temporary nature of the downloads. In the last few years I have probably downloaded over a terabyte of stuff, but right now I probably have less than a a gig of it on my computer. The stuff I do have will probably be gone by next week once I have watched it. For me downloading is like borrowing from a library. Once I am done watching something I delete it. If I need it again I redownload.

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