Chapter 11 questions

1. The code of law where it said land ran to the heavens was an American law stating anything below or above was there property. Blackstone, Kent, and Coke had been the ones who stated, "an indefinite extent, upward,"

2. The phenomena of the case in 1945 is that there was a law that stated land property ran to the stars. After the invention of the airplane, this law made it easy for any person to sue a company like American airlines for flying over their property. When the first case went to the Supreme Court over this matter, Justice Douglas stated that common sense revolts at the idea. This meant that in the publics interest common sense says you cant just sue everyone. This is a big idea because it proves that the law adjusts to the technologies of the time. Where does that fit in today? Well it is very relevant as the Internet gets bigger and bigger. Laws need to be changed to adapt to this new technology. The problem is we need to make sure they don’t take our rights away in doing so.

3. Edwin Howard Armstrong is one of the great inventors of are time. He story is very said and shows how “taking of property without compensation” does not affect are culture but individuals as well. Howard invented the FM radio witch paved the way for many other inventions that have changed are lifetime. When RCA found out Howard had a better invention the RCA’s AM radio they tried everything to hold it back so they could keep milking the AM radio. After years of being held back, Howard found him self in a legal battle. He ended up going broke and losing his patent. Howard killed him self showing how personal things like this can get.

4. Howard’s discovery was superior to RCA’s AM radio because FM could reach longer distances using less power. It was better in every way. Something like this can be very intimidating to a big company like RCA.

5. This was the question I asked my self when doing the reading. I f Armstrong had went public as soon as he had made his discovery I think he would have made it a fight between the public and RCA. Because once a new technology gets out to the public they will demand it and RCA would have no choice but to pay royalties to Armstrong. I believe that Armstrong was the true owner of this new technology.

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8. The important and unrecognized change is the freedom that the Internet gives its users to express what ever they want. This is a threat to the government. Before the Internet people used to get they culture from the corner or from family. Now with the Internet, the government has a way of controlling what we take in and how are culture is going to be shaped.

9. Commercial culture is the culture that is produced and sold or produced to be sold. Non-commercial culture is everything else. The reason that Non-commercial is not treated the same as commercial culture is because Non-commercial can not be tampered with. It always going to be culture that is made on the corner or at the lunch table at school. Commercial on the other hand is on the Internet and on the T.V so this makes it open for the government to regulate.

10. Content-based industries have always made their money by offering a service that provides information. Before the Internet, you would have to pay a company to get information you wanted. Now with the Internet, information is free as long as you know how to search the Internet right.

11. The author would say that all piracy is bad in one way or another. The only problem the author has is that he believes that in the process of fighting piracy that it will also rid our culture of its values.

12. Piracy is the act of stealing property and property is what is being taken.

13. The first amendment to our U.S Constitution is right to freedom of speech, press, and religion.