Thou shalt not steal (content).

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My friend Rilla Bailey is an illustrator. When she was around 12 years old, she started drawing a copyright symbol next to her signature on every sketch she created.
This gave me a chuckle as I thought there was a bit more of a process one had to go though to make something copyrighted than slapping a © next to it.
When I asked her about it she said, “ownership is so serious to someone who creates something new.”
At the time I thought she was being silly, but now that I’ve created new content of my own, I understand her possessiveness.
I recently designed a logo for UConn’s Information Management Association (which I have purposely not posted). If I saw my logo published by anyone but IMA, I would be furious. I’d feel the same if parts or the whole of articles I ‘ve written appeared under someone else’s byline.
In a world of free movies, music, television shows, images and articles just a click or two away, we’re presented with a difficult question: to steal or not to steal?
Nobody wants to be told they’re a thief, but isn’t that really what we’re doing when we take people’s content without paying for it?
I appreciate the television shows that offer their episodes online for a couple weeks after they’ve aired. That way, the content isn’t free forever, but offering it for a certain time period lessons people’s desire to steal it from somewhere else.
Here are three I watch online most often. I have actually never watched them at their original airing time!

The Office season 5 on NBC image from www.blogiversity.org

Pushing Daisies season 2 on ABC image from www.idsnews.com

Lipstick Jungle season 2 on NBC image from www.impawards.com

Most people enjoy some sort of movies and music. And most of us would much rather grab something for free at the convenience of our own home computer than drive to a store and pay for that same movie or album.
Often the excuse is, “but those record companies or movie industries have so much money, do they really need my 15 or 20 dollars?” Maybe they don’t need your 15 dollars, but think of all the hundreds of thousands of other people who have that same mind set.
Eventually, industries will have to charge more per album or movie and it will become a vicious cycle. Won’t this ultimately result with much less content being produced?
So how does all this affect us as journalists? It’s nice to have almost every single article ever written at our disposal and to have mountains of other content on the other side of a Google search. But because this content is so easily accessible, it makes us have to be very careful when giving credit for everything we publish.
I don’t want my hard work to end up republished without my consent. I don’t know about you, but when I put myself in the content generator’s shoes, it makes me want to take the time to attribute the content I use to its proper source.

– colleenkay

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