An open source or community sharing resource is very common, but how often do we really come across them in an average day? More than most people would initially think. Actually, it is considered highly controversial. I remember around the holiday times, even all the way back growing up as a kid and my family was consistently cooking. My mom would make a few pies, while my grandma was making different casseroles. When we all gathered with the rest of the family, that’s where all the different foods and drinks got put together as a feast. Point being, all these recipes came from somewhere. I know personally my family looked up a lot of their recipes on the computer. It's convenient, just a few clicks of a button and your all of a sudden at the world's biggest recipe book, the internet. This recipe sharing is just like downloading illegal music off the internet as well, right? Napster co-owners Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker both claimed this as they battled their law suit years ago in regards to their "illegal music" downloading program. They claimed it was the same as sharing recipes, but everyone else didn't exactly agree. These programs are known as "peer-to-peer file sharing" services. These are an open source/community sharing resource that is legally controversial. Reason being, just as with Napster, this opened programs to allow people to download essentially free music, videos, software’s and games straight to their computer. See any potential red flags? I do. Even though I admit to using similar programs, it was around the same time I had a really popular program in the social world known as MSN Messenger. As long as you had an email address, you qualified. You had a user name that was open for your friends to identify you and you just chatted away at night with your friends. One moment I enjoyed was when me and my friend Jordan would get on chat and exchange the different music we had found. This was simply done by dragging your music file from your desktop per say and then dropping in your chat window. You could transfer virtually any file that was on your computer straight to the computer of one of your buddy's, or twelve. So let's say I buy a Nelly album with 12 songs for $15 onto my computer. The amount doesn't necessarily matter unless you look at a small scale figure in the sense of a typical MSN conversation I had. Instead of my friend just spending another $15 on the copy of same album for himself, I could just transfer the whole album straight through the chat and to my friend. That's $15 that Nelly didn't get. Or, I send the album to 10 of my friends. That's $150 that didn't go to this respected owner of that file. To compare, American studios lost 2.3 billion in 2005 due to those free downloading programs. Similar terms are considered online piracy and of course theft to some. However, not all open resources are considered bad. In fact, it’s got great benefits as well. I personally love that I can get on my Murray State account and access a free virtually library that consists of text for educational, spiritual and recreational purposes. You couldn't ask for a better, convenient resource just a few clicks away. Anyway, I think the fine line between the two is clear. But when you consider popular open sources/community sharing resources such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, not to mention the capabilities of sharing pictures, music, videos, text, ect. You really wonder where to draw the line sometimes. To say what’s right and what’s wrong, it’s just hard to put your finger on sometimes. That’s why open sources/community sharing resources are highly controversial and always will be.
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