The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Mann's article brings about some interesting points. A good writer would not think twice about plaigiarizing a colleague's latest novel. People would not be caught dead jumping over the rope entrance to an art museum. But, these very same people would be quick to accept a pirated version of Microsoft word. I can say this because I, too, am guilty. I believe that digitized media is easier to violate when it comes to copyright, but that doesn't make it right. Blatent copy and pasting in academic work is something that I think warrants consequences. Maybe some notion exists among society that traditional sources of media or journalism are "real" works of art- they deserve to be untainted by the world of cheaters and stealers. But, when it comes to digitized media, well, "that's just a bunch of number crunched code with dashes and hyphens stuck in between. Anyone could make that if they have the time". It's kind of surprising that we ( the average Joe) can still think this knowing that we could never design something comparable to Microsoft Excel or Office. To say that digitized media breaks down all notion of copyright is going over board. But in today's society, no one's looking, so why not.