SOPA and PIPA

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are two bills that were introduced by Congress in 2011; they proposed that the government should be allowed to stop "criminal activity"--as it relates to copyright infringements--by redirecting the URLs of sites whose content violate copyright laws. Users would be directed to non-functioning (404) sites. Many of those who are against SOPA and PIPA call it "censorship." Others call it "black listing." Some call it the potential downfall of the Internet. Of course, there are logical reasons as to why the bills should be passed. The primary reason is to try and stop the illegal trafficking/streaming/sharing of protected movies, songs, intellectual property, etc. As you can image, Hollywood and record companies are in favor of these laws. Internet companies are not.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to use--as sources--the videos and the NYTimes article I mentioned in class.

Aaron Swartz on Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/14/freedom_to_connect_aaron_swartz_1986

Clay Shirky on Ted Talks
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/14/freedom_to_connect_aaron_swartz_1986

NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/what-wikipedia-wont-tell-you.html

Super Bowl (due Wednesday Feb. 13 @ 10PM)

As we discussed in class, advertisers and marketing agencies use many strategies to hook us in. They work to make their ads memorable so that in the future we purchase their products, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are a number of reasons why it is important to study their methods. For this post I want you to address the following questions (make sure to use your textbook (the advertising chapter) as well as two other sources.)

1- Find one of the commercials from this year's Super Bowl and analyze it in a similar way that we did in class

a) Purely objectively: a brief summary of what the ad was about including the plot, the demographics of actors, the environment, the type of camera angles/shots, music, etc.

b) Describe what you believe the advertiser's intentions were. 

c) Did you like the ad? Did they succeed in hooking you in?

d) If you could change the ad to be more Affective, what would you do?

2- WHY do you believe is it important to study advertisements?

If you need some inspiration for your writing, take a look at the following ad, it is a good opinion piece on the Dodge commercial. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmith/2013/02/06/chrysler-and-the-most-acclaimed-super-bowl-ad-of-all-time-heres-the-rest-of-the-story/