Copyright, Fair Use, Piracy, and Multimedia Products

This week I learned about copyright, fair use, piracy, and how to use multimedia products. When creating multimedia products like making blogs and doing a project for school, make sure that you use a lot of sources to back up your information so people can see where you got it from. Also make sure that you use all the available software to make your blog or project a success and make it more engaging for the people that is viewing it. Using software like the Word Doc, Presentations, and Spreadsheet etc. are some of the most useful and most used software that anyone can use easily. If you plan on using a copyrighted item for a school project of news reporting then it is totally legal to do so with Fair Use. Fair Use is legal for anyone who is using a copyrighted item for purposes such as for Education, News Reporting, Parody, and/or Critical Commentary. Your part of the deal is to cite the sources of where you got it from. Piracy or in other words, posting or showing an item that has a copyright on it free for download with no Fair Use purposes, even though you bought. This act can be committed easily by anyone with just one mistake, everyone in the world can get their hands on it. Using the internet, its sources, and people's works can be tricky and hard to maneuver through, but with some time anyone can get use to citing sources and giving rightful credit to those people all around the world for their work.

Check out my video about:

My Thoughts on Piracy, Copyright, and Fair Use

Check out this video for more detail about fair use in a fun way!

Video about Fair Use (Animated)

How To Cite Sources And Avoid Plagiarism

This week I learned about how to cite and give credit to those websites and articles that we used in our research, paper, or project. Whenever you use someone's work or words from the internet or a book, you must give them the credit because that is not your words and it is not your work. You can always paraphrasing a quote or phrase from a book or site, but even though it's in your words, you still have to give the credit to those people because it is still there work that you are using even though it is your own words. If you do not give credit to those people, this is considered stealing. It is also called Plagiarism. This is a serious crime that anyone can commit. Just as stealing an item from a store or something, Plagiarism is also the same, it is just stealing words instead of items from a store. Some people around the world had been caught for plagiarizing. To avoid plagiarizing, you should first cite everything that you have used as a source for either a work for school or anything that requires research. You do not have to cite something that you know from your own common knowledge because that's already your words right there! Always put other people's words in your own words or if you are citing a quote be sure to stated what source you got it from and then put the quote that you got in quotation marks to indicate that it's the source's words and not yours. Try not to use Wikipedia because that website has many false information and anyone in the word can edit it which makes it more untrustworthy. When citing something make sure to use your school's rules of citation, some schools have different ways to cite their sources from other schools. I have to site my sources in MLA format and I use a website called easybib.com to help me cite my sources. When you go on the internet to research you will notice some websites that have different domains such as .com, .org, .edu, .gov, .net etc. some of these domains are credible such as .edu, and .gov but some of them you need to look at it more closely to see if it is credible such as .com, .org, and .net. Some things you need to look for is the date of when it was last updated and the author's or creator of the site's background information to see if he or she is an expert or a pro at what they are saying. If the date is like way past 8-12 months ago, it might not be as credible as it seems. you have to check the author's background information because they might be saying something about themselves that has nothing to do with what the article or anything on their site. Then it might not be a very good article to use as research. There are some other things you have to look out for like spelling and grammar errors, so just be careful when you are choosing your sources.

http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

http://www.ivcc.edu/stylebooks/stylebook6.aspx?id=14724

Viruses, ID Thefts, and Passwords

Viruses, ID theft, and the importance using strong passwords and protecting your computer from viruses are some of the most important details to know about the internet and your computer. Viruses includes Adware, Malware, Spyware, and other types of viruses, worms, and bots. Viruses can cause harm to you computer in many ways and more to come ways as technology increases. It can harm your computer by making it crash often, the hackers or person that placed that virus on your computer can steal your pictures, videos, or other personal files, or it can infect other devices as the infected device is connected to other unharmed devices if the virus is a spreading virus. Viruses are nasty things, that I think are literally stocker programs to stock on people when they don't even know it or notice it.

Viruses brings many problems that are either cheap to fix to try to fish it out or it can be costly if left unaided for a long time. One main problem that it can cause is Identity theft. Identity theft is literally what it says and it mean that people who steals people's identities usually would steal them to pretend to be that person to use their personal information like credit card and social security number for their own use.

You can protect your computer from viruses, worms, bots and other dangerous softwares by installing a program that protects your computer from viruses, worms , and bots. You can also protect your computer by making sure to check the URL of the websites you visit to see if it is secure or not. Some symbols on the URL that tells you that it is secure are padlocks and https websites not http. Padlocks symbols usually mean that it will be asking for personal information and these locks are usually seen in bank websites and other store websites such as ebay and amazon. Https websites means that it has secure sockets layer (SSL) meaning that it is a secure site to go on. Protecting your devices can be costly, but it can be safe for you because it can protect your private files without you having to worry about them.

Social medias, email websites, bank websites, etc are some of the most vulnerable sites that hackers can hack into. The importance of using strong passwords is that it can help to protect your privacy better. When creating a password for your accounts on social medias, bank, emails, and other accounts, it's important to know how to make a STRONG password for these accounts. For example, you can have the first letters of a favorite quote or phrase instead of a single word password. You can also add special characters to your passwords so it would be hard to guess by those hackers. Never respond or click on links on suspicious or scam emails cause those hackers can be pretending to be the ''trusted'' company just to get a hold of your account usernames and passwords. Always change your passwords frequently and don't have the same password for everything. By using these steps and other secure steps, your computer can be safe and your info protected with a frequently changed password that no one can guess but you!

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/texting-while-driving