God s Commandments Of The Bible Essay - 1581 Words

From the beginning of the Bible, God gives orders and commandments to humankind. God’s orders range from not eating from a certain tree to talking to foreign rulers to killing people. No matter what the commandment entails or the difficulty of said commandment, God expects the person to adhere to the commandment given to them. If the person does as God commanded them, God rewards that person. On the contrary, God punishes the person who does not obey His commandments. The acts of loving, fearing, and worshiping God may be what God’s commandments entail, but the act God punishes is the act of not obeying His commandments. During Adam and Eve’s time in the Garden of Eden, God gives the pair just one rule to follow. God commands Adam and Eve, â€Å"You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die† (Genesis 2:16-17). This rule is not obeye d as a result of the serpent tempting Eve. She falls victim to the temptation and eats the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then gives the fruit to Adam who eats as well. God fulfils His promise and punishes Adam and Eve by sending them â€Å"out of the garden of Eden† and away from the tree of life (Gen 3:23). Adam and Eve’s punishment is not just exile but a slow death, because this punishment strips them of the ability to â€Å"take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever† (Gen 3:22). Adam and Eve’sShow MoreRelatedMy Understanding Of The Bible934 Words   |  4 PagesMy understanding of the bible is that it has changed over years. From floods, burning bushes, sea parting, Adam and eve, and god talking to men. The bible has changed the world s view, not every human being believes in the bible. They may see it in a secular point of view, and just think the bible is just made up stories. But others may see it as a guide, manual, the right way Christians but don t live a life of a Christian. This is really something that happens globally for exampleRead MoreYou Will Earn God s Blessing If You Follow The Rules And Commandments Of God751 Words   |  4 PagesYou will earn God’s blessing if you follow the rules and commandments of God. The Bible is the sacred text of Christians that has the stories and commandments of God. Heaven is where Christians are wishing to go to after they die. â€Å"Rejoice and be glad, for you reward is great in Heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Bible - New Testament). Many people have not gone to heaven because they are not a true follower, but if you are a true follower, then there is noRead MoreReligion Vs Ramayana1528 Words   |  7 Pages The Ramayana is one of the world’s oldest religious epics, dating back to roughly 7,000 B.C. and only first being written down around 500 B.C. Compare this to the Bible, in which scholars believe that writing began for the Old Testament around 5,000 B.C. Both of these texts have been continually updated since their respective creations. Since the Ramayana was first only an oral story, it continually went through progressive changes, with its first written incarnation taking place around 500 B.CRead MoreBook Review : Inferno 1595 Words   |  7 PagesTheicher states, [Bang s] Inferno is a classic recast for our age, a Hell we ll find ourselves in, an old poem made new by one of our most surprising and innovative poets. (Indiebound, Inferno: A New Translation) Dante s Inferno thrives in its fame ho lding tremendous amounts of reasons for its popularity. The first thing that draws readers’ attention to any book most likely involves the title of the literature. The title itself fits the storyline flawlessly for Dante s fate. Inferno means aRead MoreIn Judaism, GodS Word Is Found In The Hebrew Bible (Or1524 Words   |  7 PagesIn Judaism, God s word is found in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament), written entirely in Hebrew, except for a few chapters or verses that are in Aramaic, the Semitic language related to Hebrew. This is the most transled and most read worldwide book. The Bible is divided into: Torah (the five books of Moses), Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (writings, Psalms). In rabbinic literature the word Torah it is common to refer to the entire Bible. The sacred book of Judaism is the Torah, which consistsRead MoreCode Of Hammurabi Vs. The Ten Commandments1610 Words   |  7 Pages Name: Veronica Vasquez Professor: Theodore Sanders Class: WOH 1012 History of World Civilization to 1500 Date: October 15th, 2015 Code of Hammurabi Vs. The Ten Commandments. Picture a king so ahead of his time and so powerful that he was aware of the importance and sense of urgency behind establishing laws to ensure the growth of civilization and humanity. His name was Hammurabi and he was the king of Babylon. He reigned from 1792 B.C. all the way to 1750 B.C. As an innovativeRead MoreThe Definition Of Marriage And Family Relationships Essay1260 Words   |  6 PagesWhat is the definition of marriage in the Bible? Better yet what is the definition of family in the Bible? In Scripture there are many families which could be studied in order to better answer this question, but some of the most prominent choices are Abraham s family, David s family, and Solomon s family. Each of these families in turn had their own sets of issues and problems, but there are also Biblical solutions to these problems which shall be address through the course of this paper. ButRead MoreThe Doctrine Of The Bible925 Words   |  4 PagesWhether the Bible provides us with such a absolute moral standards? If the Bible is implied from God, and its centerpiece is about human sin and God s salvation, which is not difficult to imagine must contain or through a set of absolute moral standards. Bible sin of the word means arrow not in. According to John 5:17 Day says, All unrighteousness is sin. Can see, the crime is a deviation from righteousness. That what, what is it justice? Bible distinguish two kinds of meaning, that is,Read More Moses Essay1131 Words   |  5 Pages300 years ago during their journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom as a nation in the land of Israel. For 40 years Moses led the people through the desert on their way to Israel and helped shape them into a nation that could live under the laws of God. Moses oversaw the creation and development of the first Israelite systems of worship, the anointing of the family line of his brother Aaron as priests, and the creation of a legal system of governance for the community. Ancient Israel had a long oralRead MoreThe Religious Code Of Ethics934 Words   |  4 Pageshim, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. Since the time before Moses, God has called man to serve him in some fashion, whether priest or prophet it takes discernment to realize the God has called you to service. When I was in my early twenties, 1heard God call to me saying I am God, and I knew then that God wanted me to serve him. But, at that time, I denied that calling and have suffered for my self ­ centeredness. I grew up with a mother

Literary Criticism of The Open Boat - 1106 Words

The Open Boat by Stephen Crane is a story describing four men that are trapped together in a small boat or dingy. The men aboard the boat are a captain, a correspondent, an oiler, and a cook. The men were aboard a larger boat that crashed off the coast of Florida and are now searching for the safety of a light house they remember. After making a homemade sail and some brisk paddling they finally get near the coast. They spot some people and begin to signal for help but the people only respond with friendly waves. The tide is much too strong to swim to shore so they paddle back out to sea a ways and wait for it to calm. While waiting they get approached by a shark. The large fish circles in such a way that death searches for the†¦show more content†¦The cook represents the follower. He must be told what to do and does not represent a very strong character. However, it is completely necessary to have followers in the world. Without these citizens in the world then t he leaders would have little to lead. He is given the simple job of keeping the water out of the boat. He never takes a turn rowing and when the narrator describes the shifts he shared with the oiler, he tells how the cook sleeps through many different cycles of ships and serves the purpose of keeping the other man warm. Even when evacuating the boat the cook must be instructed by the captain on how to row. From this information we learn that the cook is probably a very ignorant man with little survival skills. The oiler represents the worker or common man. The oiler is the character that best relates to the average citizen. He is a very hard worker and takes direction well. He is the only character that does not lose hope of survival although he is only character that does not survive the journey. The oiler represents strength, heroics, and integrity. The oiler keeps the spirits of the rest of the crew up by example. He never stops rowing or pressing forward. He also rep eats the captain’s orders which help to establish the social order that existed at the time. The four men all represent very different figures in society. It is very important that theShow MoreRelatedA Comparison of Jack London and Stephen Crane.1481 Words   |  6 PagesA Comparison of Jack London and Stephen Crane. Jack London and Stephen Crane were both well-known literary naturalists who died at relatively early ages. Despite having lived such a short life, Jack London lived a full life. He has achieved wide popularity abroad, with his work being translated into more than fifty languages, as well as having written fifty literary works in eighteen years. His stories in the naturalistic mode still continue to influence writers today. Stephen Crane was also anRead MoreThe Open Boat by Stephen Crane Essay1882 Words   |  8 Pages â€Å"The Open Boat† is short tale of endurance, suffering, and redemption. The story focuses on four interesting sailors on a journey towards survival. They try their best to overcome the adversities of the water and raging storm. Crane focuses on the constant struggle of man’s immobility to control his own life. â€Å"The Open Boat† is a nonfictional fiction some call it. It typically is argued as only fiction, but many lean toward its nonfictional quality. Crane wrote the story based off his real lifeRead MoreEssay about Huck Finn1567 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"it was awful to see† (Twain 154). These instances show that the kind—heartedness that Huck displays is not just for one man that he became intimately fond of through continual interactions. In fact when Huck and Jim become separated after their boat was crashed into, â€Å"it [didn’t] occur to him to search for the old Negro† (O’Connor 444). So, while these subtle insinuations and omissions seem to portray Huck as indifferent, altogether they continually serve to illustrate his overall innate goodnessRead MoreAlliteration In Leda And The Swan By Ray Bradbury1852 Words   |  8 Pageswell-known person, place, place, event, literary work, or work of art (Literary Devices). Example: On page fifty-seven of Fahrenheit 451, Beatty says, â€Å"Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it.† The reference to the books Little Black Sambo and Uncle Tom’s Cabin show allusion (Bradbury 57). Ambiguity: is a word, phrase, or statement which contains more than one meaning (Literary Devices). Example: The poem â€Å"Leda and theRead More Mary Shelly Essay examples1564 Words   |  7 PagesMary Wollstonecraft Shelly has written many books in her life. She has received much criticism about one of her books inperticular, Frankenstien. Frankenstein was one of her most famous novels. Shelly had written Frankenstein in order to enter a contest but what few people realized was that Frankenstein was one of many nightmares that Shelly had during her rough childhood. Shelly has become one of the most renowned Gothic authors because of her use of graphic descriptions and settings and herRead MoreTruman Capotes In Cold Blood1591 Words   |  7 Pagesusing traditional literary and rhetorical conventions to expose broader truths concerning humanity as a whole without going astray from the truth (â€Å"Nonfiction Novel†). Capote had long felt that journalism could expose broader truths concerning the human condition that fiction could not, as Capote explains in this excerp t from Inge’s Truman Capote: Conversations: I’ve always had the theory that reportage is the great unexplored art form. I mean, most good writers, good literary craftsmen, seldomRead MoreHigher Ground: Marxism in DeLillos White Noise Essays1839 Words   |  8 Pagesmiddle-aged suburban college professor, it is clear that the overarching obsession with death operates as an inherently bourgeois pathology and ideological apparatus that serves to fuel a capitalist consumer economy. Marxist literary criticism as defined by Peter Barry approaches a literary text through terms introduced in Karl Marx’ and Friedrich Engels’ Communist economic theory. Their jointly written text titled The Communist Manifesto called for a society with â€Å"state ownership on industry†¦ rather thanRead MoreHow Does Literature Shape American Culture?968 Words   |  4 PagesAmerican Literature: Literary or Geometry? How does American literature shape American culture? America, a baby nation compared to many other countries, has shaped itself into one of the most politically and technically advanced places in the world. The definition of American Literature is any literary work written in, or about The United States. The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, The Narrative of the Life of Fredric Douglass and various other works of literature are all pieces of American literatureRead MoreArthur Conan Doyle1279 Words   |  6 Pagesone of Doyle’s teachers in medical school (Dr. Joseph Bell) was a great influence for Holmes’ ability to make intelligent assumptions about people by only looking at them (120). Doyle’s first voyage across the sea was on the Hope, an Arctic fishing boat (Notable British 267). As a ship’s surgeon, Doyle once heard a tale from Fletcher Robinson, a friend of his, about an evil dog that haunted the densely foggy moors of Devonshire (â€Å"The Houndà ¢â‚¬  131). Nevertheless, his career as a doctor never fully cameRead MoreSatire In Herman Melvilles Moby Dick1239 Words   |  5 Pagesone-sided interpretation. Moby Dick portrays many American symbols: the Nantucketer as a new type of hero; the ultimate American legacy, democracy (a political concept which abolishes differences in class and rank), and finally, the Pequod, a whaling boat with sailors from all over the world representing America’s culturally inclusive concept. Melville’s use of satirical strategies allows him to dissociate from the focus of his critique and figuratively disassemble what he thought to be an unscrupulous

Love Canal

Love Canal- Environmental Disaster Essay Love CanalLoves Model CityThe Model City (tune of Yankee Doodle)Everybodys come to town, Theyr building now a great big ditch,Those left we all do pity, Through dirt and rock so gritty,For well have a jolly time, They say ?twill make all very richAt Loves new Motel City Who live in Model CityThis tale I tell is no less true, Our boys are bright and well to do,Though in a silly ditty, Our girls are smart and pretty,They give free sites and power too, They can not help it nor could you,In Loves new Model City If you lived in Model CityThen come and join our earnest band,All who are wise and witty,Heres out heart and heres our hand,To build the Model city. Water is a necessity for life. Throughout the growth of civilization, communities sprang up near the edge of waterways. Running rivers and standing lakes provided clean drinking water, food and energy for people. It was running water that set the gears working in the head of the charismatic entrepreneur William. T. Love. In 1890s, Love saw a 20000 acre community in Niagara county as his plot for his utopian ?Model City?. Loves Model City would be located 7.5 miles away from Niagara River. A power canal seven miles long would connect the town with the upper and lower levels of Niagara River The channeled water would be lead to the Lewiston escarpment which would create a mini Niagara Falls thus creating a major power source for the Model City. Page 2This would create a great amount of hydroelectric power in a time which factories must be located near their power source. In January 1893, William Love went to Albany to politick for a charter for his model city. He did so by addressing both the senate and the assembly in a joint session, a first for a private citizen. A very liberal charter was granted which gave him the right to ?acquire by condemnation any necessary properties?. (27, Zweig) Love gained the financial backing from banking giants in New York, Chicago and London. (25, Zweig) With the charter now in hand, Love extensively promoted his model city through ads, circulars and even ?brass bands playing his original ditty.? (2, Love Canal Report) Manufacturers quickly lined up to open plants along the canal. May 1894, construction in the LaSalle area began. The proposed canal would be 80ft widex30ft deep. 3,000 feet was excavated when Loves dream collapsed. A financial depression hit the country in 1896, discouraging the necessary financial backers. This was the most significant factor explaining the projects demise. Another factor had t do wit h the power source. Louis Tesh discovered a way to transmit electrical current economically over a distance using alternating current. Now factories did not have to pay for expensive plots of land near power sources. His backers deserted him; the remaining land was auctioned in 1910. The only remain of Loves dream Model City was a partially built canal. Several decades afterwards, it served as a swimming hole for the children of the LaSalle district. (6, Love Canal Report) In the 1920s it became a dumping and municipal disposal site, Page 3?chemicals of an unknown kind and quantity were buried at the site for 25-30 year period until 1953? (3, Love Canal Report) Within fifty years, love canal went from being a charismatic entrepreneurs dream to a toxic human and environmental disaster and the fingers and legislation point directly at the dumpers. It is estimated that love canal received 22000 tones of chemical waste. (44, Zweig) The four main dumpers was the city of Niagara, Hooker Electrochemical Co, Niagara Power and Development Corp., and the Army, under the cover of a ceramics plant. ALEXANDER THE GREAT EssayBibliographyWork SitedStoss, Fredrick. ?Love Canal: Reminder Why we Celebrate Earth Day?1998. Online. University at Buffalo. Internet. Available: Library.ucsb.edu/ish/00~spring/article2.htmlTuchman, Gary. ?CNN- Despite Toxic History, Residents Return to Love Canal 1998. Online. CNN. Internet. Available: cnn.com/US/9808/07/love.canal/United States. Department of Health. Love Canal Report: Public Health Time BombNew York: 1980 Zweig, Micheal. United States. The Assembly State of New York. The Federal Connection: A history of the US Military Involvement in the Toxic Contamination of Love Canal and the Niagara Frontier region. Volume 1. New York: January, 1981Science Essays

Hacking For Money Essay Example For Students

Hacking For Money Essay Many of the products we buy today are no more than large collections of zeroes and ones. High-priced software, high-quality music, and valuable reference material such as computerized databases or CD-Rom encyclopedias are commercial products like any other, but the media of their transmission makes them different in at least one aspect: it is possible to copy them freely, or at least extremely cheaply. A compact disc of Elvis Costello and the Attractions is different from, say, a ham and swiss sandwich in many ways, but beyond the obvious is one reason that makes the nature of the two items and their roduction and purchase very different indeed: I can only eat the ham and swiss sandwich once, while I can listen to the Attractions CD repeatedly. This is a result of the fact that the CD contains information, rather than an actual substance such as the sandwich has. The consumable material in the sandwich is actual food and is gone after its consumption, while the consumable material in the compact disc is encoded binary data that will be around for the life of the physical disc. Since the sandwich can only be consumed once, we pay out an amount of money that signifies what one sandwich is worth to us. If I want nother sandwich, I pay another $4. 95. If someone were to invent a ham and swiss sandwich that could be eaten thousands of times (lets not go into the mechanics of how this would work) then the producer might be justified in charging many times the cost of an ordinary ham and swiss, on the grounds that Im getting more than just one sandwich. Buy our sandwich once, and youll never go hungry again! However, one might protest this idea if we know that it still costs the usual amount to make the sandwich. If a producer can make a repeatedly-edible sandwich for a couple dollars, and sell it for $4,000, he tands to profit hugely. The reason we might be able to justify charging four grand for a ham sandwich is that in our usual structure of sales and ownership, we agree with the vendor to pay a price reflective of what the product is worth to us, the consumer. In this light, its irrelevant that the producer only spent $2. 50 to make that repeatedly-edible sandwich, because to me as a consumer such a sandwich is worth thousands. Or to return to the example of the compact disc; its irrelevant that the producer only paid a nickel to produce each disc, because to me its worth fifteen dollars to be able to listen to Punch the Clock at my leisure. The problem with this scenario is that it allows the producer to profit extremely at the expense of the consumer. I dont think Id too willingly pay more than fifteen dollars for a CD, and the record companies know this. Five million CDs sold at whatever wholesale price gets them to be $15 retail is a lot more profit than five million CDs sold at some lower price. Labels could charge less, in the hopes that people would buy more CDs (and this is the guiding principle behind distribution houses like BMG and Columbia House), but in general the cost is going towards promotion and marketing, rather han towards the minimal expense of getting the discs made and into stores. In a capitalist organization, one concept inextricably linked to marketing and sales is that of ownership, or of intellectual property. A car company might have patent rights to manufacture and sell a particular model of car, or a record label might have the rights to make and sell a particular recording. A ham sandwich is a less specific item; anyone can make a sandwich and sell it, but only McDonalds has the legal right to call it an Arch Deluxe. This structure works well for assigning rights to the inventor or patent holder of a product f someone designs a new kind of carburetor, they should have the right to exclusive manufacturing and marketing, without worrying about someone else capitalizing on that invention. This structure has been extended to cover the more abstract notion of intellectual property, thus giving an individual or company the exclusive legal right to manufacture a certain musical recording, to sell a piece of software, or to use the words Enjoy Coke in a commercial context, since what is owned in these cases is intellectual property information, binary data, or an advertising slogan. But does it make sense to extend the concept of ownership to these things? In all cases of ownership, or holding the patent to an invention, the real thing being owned is the right to make use of certain information for profit. I could make and sell South Park T-shirts, but since I havent gotten permission from its owners, Im breaking copyright law. I could steal someones design for a carburetor and produce them myself, but we generally agree that the inventors rights are being infringed upon, since I havent arrived at that carburetor design by any effort of my own. Stealing, we say, is wrong. The question is, what is stealing? The most obvious kind of property theft is that of stealing tangible physical objects. If I take someones ham and swiss without their permission, its theft. The difference between this and what we call intellectual property theft is the fact that if I take someones sandwich, they can no longer eat it, but if I take (say, make a copy of) their software or musical recording, theyre not at any real loss they can still use the software or listen to the music. But, if they had intended to sell copies of said software or music, they are losing in that Ive ust acquired for free what they had intended to charge me money for. Often the two kinds of theft are considered as one, but I feel that a distinction needs to be made due to the two very different natures of what is being stolen. Lets push this a little further with an example that is commonly debated in the music industry regarding its morality sampling. Now, a sampler is a tool like any other, and plenty of musicians use it to record original samples for musical composition purposes, but plenty of others also use sampling technology to outright plagiarize other musicians work. Legal and permissions issues aside, this can be a dubious artistic undertaking, and there are artistic differences between what Puff Daddy is doing with sampling, and what the Future Sound of London is doing with it. The fact is, sampling has become simply another musical tool a logical extension of what composers have done throughout history by borrowing melodic and tonal ideas from one another albeit one that can be quite easily abused. Music isnt the only art form to involve dubious kinds of originality. Phraseology and style are borrowed, traded, and stolen in the iterary world constantly a creative writing professor once told me that Bad writers borrow; good writers steal. Visual arts are often built upon styles throughout history, and forms such as photomontage or collage may involve copyrighted pictures of other artists works. Photography itself is a way of artistically capitalizing on images and scenes that anyone can see with their own eyes, the camera a kind of visual sampler. In these cases it comes down to a question of whether the writer or artist being stolen from is losing anything in terms of intellectual property and marketability. Its ertainly true that some artistic statements can only be made by outright theft of anothers creation, for the purposes of placing the original work in a new context. A good example is a sculpture on Bowling Green State Universitys campus. POETRY ANALYSIS Argumentative EssayThe artists who choose to use traditional methods cassettes, film, and paper to create and distribute their work stand a lesser likelihood of having their work duplicated or altered than those who port their creations to digital. Digital is more practical for some reasons: you can fit wice your weight in books on a CD-Rom; email is faster and cheaper than postal mail; digital video offers possibilities undreamed of in the days of film. But with all that enhanced convenience, speed, and versatility comes the increased risk of the previously mentioned modes of duplication. Marshall McLuhan conceived that the medium is the message that the form which our communication takes is of more relevance than its actual content. Now that weve grown accustomed to the electronic medium, content is re-emerging with the rapid and inexpensive duplication and alteration that is only possible with that edium. Ive touched upon some of the comparisons that can be made between an electronic, or otherwise easily replicable product, and a physical, not-so-easily replicable product. Obviously there are differences, but are these enough to warrant the claim that ease of replicability implies a revised mode of ownership? Just because software and digital audio are easy to copy, does that mean we should? And does the digital nature of some products mean that the originator of those products should benefit any less than they would have had that product been in traditional physical form? An argument that may be used in favor of copyright protection for electronic media is that if an artist or programmer is hoping to make a substantial living through sale of their work, then that work should be protected. Why should an article or novel be protected any less merely because it is published on the World Wide Web, rather than in a print magazine? In both cases, the original author should have the right to claim ownership of what theyve written especially if someone else stands to profit by taking that work and unjustly claiming it as their own. Contrastingly, he author should also have the right to publish their work as public domain, or anonymously and thus claiming no ownership rights on it but we may also agree that it would be equally unjust if someone were again to take that work as their own and profit by it (this latter case is different only in that the original author is not losing out, since they had never planned to profit by their creation in the first place). In both cases we usually consider it wrong for the work to be stolen, regardless of what conditions the original author published it under. Is it feasible to utilize another kind of copyright rotection one which protects a public domain creation from being unjustly stolen? This is something like what is happening with GNU/Linux and its source code; part of its license provides for protection from patents. Or, to quote from the GNU General Public License itself, any patent must be licensed for everyones free use or not licensed at all. This is quite a powerful idea. The authors of a work of public domain software have ensured that it remains public domain. The driving concept here is the idea that allowing the community to directly influence the evolution of the software (by giving them he source code and all the rights that the original authors have), everyone benefits. Rather than one company benefitting at the cost of the community (as is the case with most commercial software) the free software ethic provides a way for everyone to benefit, and moreover provides protection from those who would leverage that freedom for personal gain at the expense of the community. Might this be applied to realms of creation other than software? Just as there are functional advantages in allowing a community to modify a piece of software, might there be literary advantages in publishing poems, articles, essays, or ven novels as public-domain works? Or musical advantages to publishing free sample, drum loop, or song databases? Musicians and writers are known to be a picky bunch when it comes to letting others tamper with their work and of course, those that dont want their work tampered with can always copyright it and claim ownership for themselves, just as most software authors copyright their work and dont release the source code. But for those who wish to contribute artistic works to a community-based effort, under the assumption that others will revise and improve those works, protection should also be offered. Granted not everyone is capable of improving on someone elses creation, but as long as everyone has equal access and privelege to alter those creations, the best end product will eventually emerge. If you stir up the pot enough, the cream eventually rises to the top, and it will be there for everyone to share and benefit from. One of the provisions of United States copyright law is for the copyright owner to authorize others to have any of the rights that they, the copyright owners, have. Section 106 of the U. S. Copyright Law grants the owner of a copyright xclusive rights to do and to authorize any of a number of things that we commonly assume to be the rights of a copyright holder: to reproduce the work, to prepare derivatives of it, to distribute or sell copies of it, and to present the work publicly. And Section 201d provides for the owner of a copyright to transfer ownership of that copyright to someone else, thus giving them all of the same rights that is, the right to reproduce, modify, and sell the creation, as well as transfer ownership to someone else. Sound similar to what Ive been talking about? A mistake that I often witness oes something like this: MP3s are illegal because theyre stolen from the musician who actually made the song. This misnomer is familiar to anyone whos spent any time browsing the MP3 culture on the internet; its often difficult to convince the mistaken party otherwise, since it is indeed common for MP3 to be used illegally, thanks to its high quality and portability. In the days when a copyright can be owned on a brand name, a trademark on a simple phrase, or a legal claim of intellectual ownership of a bunch of zeroes and ones that exist on someone elses hard drive, it is easy to assume that simply ecause a certain file format is commonly associate d with illegal activity, that format itself is illegal. For a while Ive argued that were already progressing beyond the conventional idea of owning physical objects, to the modernized concept of owning ideas and information. Already most of the cost of a compact disc or software package goes towards its development, advertising and marketing all of which are services, rather than substantial realities like a ham and swiss sandwich. It would only be a small step to remove the physical aspect of those products entirely; consumers would pay for the privelege of owning the MP3s of an album, or of running certain software on their computer, of owning the Acrobat files of their favorite novels, of having a painting by their favorite artist in their Windows background. But such a reality will push even further the insecurity of intellectual ownership; currency is already so largely electronic that perhaps one day the distinction between electronic currency and electronic property will become so blurred that the two merge. One piece of art, music, or software would be paid for with another instant electronic barter. And then, who will be able to claim ownership of anything?