Why Is It Legal For Netflix To Rent Movies

It's legal for Netflix to rent videos because of the copyright law first-sale doctrine. The first- sale doctrine allows legally purchased movies to be resold, rented or given away without the copyright owner's permission. It does not permit the owner to make a copy of the video. Netflix charges a monthly fee to rent movies. The rental order is placed online and is shipped to the customer if it's available.

References:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=463620

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

ADVISE TO BARUCH

Baruch can improve on its use of blackboard. Blackboard is wonderful resource for both teachers and students but it’s not being used to its full potential. It allows you to track classes, plan your schedule, keep up with assignments, and communicate with teachers and others students.

Blackboard should be made a mandatory requirement for both teachers and students to learn and use. It should be reviewed at orientation and quick video guide would be helpful. A standard template should be used for course documents, assignments and discussion boards. The course documents and assignments are not always in chronological order and the format varies from class to class. Just like how we have standards for writing papers and organizing books in a library so too should there be a standard way of presenting information on blackboard.

Make lectures available in a variety of formats such as text, audio and video. Not everyone can make it to class all the time due to conflicting priorities. Also, since Baruch is a diverse college with students and teachers from around the world it’s sometimes difficult to understand the information being presented because of thick accents. Sometimes I can’t write fast enough to keep up with the teacher. Having the lecture notes available online allows me to review the content until it sinks in. Additionally, if blackboard was muli-lingual then students and teachers could read information in their own native language.

Focus on collaborative learning. Include team projects for every class just like how writing and communications is a standard requirement for every class. Educate students and teachers about collaborative learning. Online collaborative tools are essential for geographically dispersed teams to communicate and complete projects on time.

OLD vs. NEW

To distinguish between old and new media we can look at the properties of the media to see if it has one or all of the following characteristics, communication, collaboration, community, creativity and convergence. When we look at new media we hear about social networking sites like blogs, wikis, facebook and twitter. These forms of new media include one or more of the properties of new media. They all can fall under communication, collaboration community and creativity.

Another way to distinguish between old and new media is that new media is sometimes considered bi-directional communication. When someone writes their opinion about a topic and posts it on a blog they can get feedback from others. The responses are called comments and it allows to communicate their though and ideas easily, form communities and to be creative.

Yet another way to distinguish between old and new media is to compare the old and new forms of media. Usually the new forms of media are digital in nature and in many instances connected to the Internet. Some examples would be getting television shows from the Internet, reading a book or magazine using Kindle or getting news from blogs.

Therefore you can distinguish between old and new media by looking a the properties of the media, determining if it allows for two communications or comparing it to old media to see if it’s digital in nature.

MODELING REALITY WITH VIRTUAL WORLDS

Corporations are using virtual worlds to educate and entertain people. IBM uses a virtual world for employee orientation and mentoring. A new employee at IBM can “learn how to sign-up for benefits, work on a global team and brush up on presentation skills.” Webkinz created a virtual world that allows children to interact with their plush toys online. They can play take care of their virtual pet by feeding and playing with it.

IBM is able to reduce training costs by using virtual worlds. Once they hire an employee they give them immediate access to the virtual worlds so that they can begin to learn about the culture and environment that they are going to work for. Webkinz is breathing additional life into its plush toys. Children can go online and play with the toy that they purchased. They learn to take care of their pets by completing tasks to earning money. The money can then be used buy food or entertain their virtual pet.

The darkside to IBM virtual world was that some employees were spending to much time modifying their avatars and not enough time learning. They adjusted the avatars so that they would not be much of a distraction. With Webkinz they restrict what a person can say when communicating with others. When chatting with other friends you are limited to predefined words. Additional, no personal information is stored about the user.

I think that both IBM and Webkinz have found a great use for virtual worlds. These virtual worlds are educational and entertaining.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social Networking is being used to retain employees and show off new products. Nissan created a social networking site, called N-Square, to bypass bureaucracy by boosting informal contacts. In one successful case the social networking site helped the team to decided on a new car stereo design within three days. It would have normally taken a month to reach a decision using traditional methods. IBM is helping customers to create virtual worlds to test new products and get feedback from customers. It’s clear that corporations are looking at social networking to build better teams and to improve communications between its employees and managers.

There are downsides to social networking in a corporate environment. Employees might spend more time goofing off on the social networking sites than actually working or posting inappropriate content. These are concerns that management face and that’s why at Nissan they don’t allow anonymous posting of content.

Social networking sites are going to continue to evolve to make it even easier for people to communicate and work together. To solve tomorrow’s problems a team will consist of members from around the world. Even though they may speak different languages the social networking sites will allow the team to communicate easily with one another in their own native language. We are beginning to see this now where web sites are automatically translated from one language to another language.

MY NEW MEDIA CLASS - SO FAR

Thus far CIS 3810 has been informative. We are learning about the differences between old and new media. Old media would be considered books, newspapers, radio and television. Whereas, new media would be blogs, wikis, podcasts and ezines just to name a few.

You can access new media content using the Internet and browser. The Internet is crucial to new media because it’s the medium that connects all of the computers together so that new media content can be made available to everyone. A browser then makes it easy to search for and display new media content.

New media is replacing old media because it allows for bi-directional communications. Consumers of new media can now participate and respond to information. They can now voice their opinions easily to the world using blogs, twitter and other social networking sites. The power of new media can be seen with the current Iranian protests. The Iranians are using new media such as blogs, facebooks and twitter to coordinate their protesting efforts. In Brooklyn a blog was used to inspire individuals to act and bring down drug dealers in their neighborhood.

New media has opened the door for instant communications between the individual and the mass public.

BLOGS vs. WIKIS

Blogs and wikis allow people to share information. However, blogs are individualized whereas wikis are collaborative. A blog allows anyone to write about his or her personal news and publish it so that anyone can read and comment on it. It allowed everyone to become a reporter. A wiki allows people to collaborate and store information in a central location. The information can be altered by anyone at anytime.

Blogs are not only for venting about one’s personal life. They can be used to motivate people into action. In Brooklyn a blog united a community to get rid of drugs in their neighborhood. It started with one person voicing his complaint, which was then quickly followed by other concerned citizens. A bloggers united and went to the community board and the authorities that then raided the drug dealer’s homes. What was truly amazing was that the bloggers wrote about the raid in real-time. Businesses are also using blogs to get feedback about their products and services from both customers and employees.

Wikis allows a group to store and share related information in a central location. One flaw of a wki is that the information can be altered by anyone at anytime which could lead to wiki vandalism. The Los Angeles Times created a wiki, to discuss the war in Iran, which was vandalized by the posting of inappropriate content by anonymous users. One was to avoid inappropriate content from being posted to a wiki is to now allow anonymous updates. This is what the State department did for their Diplopedia wiki. The Diplopedia is used to store biographical information about political and business leaders. Anyone is allowed to update the information on the wiki as long as they login. Each time a change is made the userid of the person who makes the change is recorded. This way it’s easy to track who made what changes. People tend to be more professional once they know they can be held accountable for their actions.

Overall blogs and wikis enable us to share information and collaborate in real time from anywhere in the world. This sharing of information and collaboration knows no boundaries.

References:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/business/media/04link.html