When I think closely, in my opinion, the best part of the Internet could only possibly be the Freedom. And yet, at the same time, the worst part about the Internet is the freedom.  Now if you’re wondering how I can possibly think that, or making that screwy face and mumbling how that’s not possible, please allow me a chance to explain my thoughts. I’ll admit they may not make much sense to you but I promise to do my best.

Freedom in a positive sense, should actually be quite obvious. Think of you’re time spent on the internet, and the things you can do: anything.

I’ll take the famous work of Youtube for example. Youtube is a hub for internet users all over the world who post video of whatever content they choose. At this point there is even what is known as the Youtube Partnership Program in which, as long as requirements are met, users can earn revenue from their videos. This, however, has some strict rules and requires every bit of the users content to be their own. Youtube is a great outlet for budding artists, tv show hosts, comedians, and other forms of entertainers. Justin Bieber (I’m sure you’ve heard of him ;) got his big start on youtube).

You probably know Youtube so I’ll move on to something a little less obvious. This involves writing.
Ever wanted to write and publish a book? Don’t have the money to do it? Don’t want to wait for the book to go through dozens of publishers just so that you can fear it gets rejected? Well why not Make Your Own Book.

Make Your Own Book is just one of the hundreds of sites that allow you to gather your own materials, and publish your own book without the help of a big name publisher company. Soundcloud is an example of a website that allows you to upload your own audio content, and Flickr allows you the same, but with photos. On either of these sites you are given the opportunity to share your work, let the entire web hear it, and decide if you’d like it to be public or private, open for public use or copyrighted only for your use.

The internet has become the best method to spread, well, anything. Music, entertainment, news, or even just the simple thoughts of one individual person. Food restaurants have websites, and facebooks, and twitters to keep consumers in the loop. TV Programs have websites where, if you missed last weeks episode, you can go online to see recaps, or even the whole thing.

Now that last statement, however, takes us into the worst part of  Freedom and the Internet.
Because while so much content can be put up, and shared with the rest of the world there is only so much anyone can do to stop things such as copyright infrengement, or theft of another artists work.

Its so easy to go to flickr, take a photo, post it on your blog and claim it as your own. Equally, while many tv shows, and artits put their music and videos online, consumers will swarm to websites like
thepiratebay.org or use BitTorrent, where they can download a torrent for an entire album, or the entire 1st-6th seasons of Supernatural. This obviously causes problems for the entertainment providers, and there is little that anyone can do about it.

Even with laws against illegal downloaded millions of people still do it, becuase it saves them the money.

The issue with freedom on the internet is that you’re continent generally cannot be guaranteed one hundred percent safe. It is likely that someone, somewhere has downloaded something of yours, regardless of whether you were selling it for free, or not.

Now if all your content gives the users freedom to do what they want with it, then there is no issue.

See, while users are free to give content to the internet other users are pretty much free to take content from the internet.

People on the internet provide free to download software such as Orbit Downloader, or Free Studio: Dvdvideosoft. With these softwares users can effectively, for example, make youtube videos downloadable, or strip music from a music video to get the song.

the cycle can work like this:

1. A new, unreleased song is played for the first time on the radio.

2. Someone recorded the program.

3. Said someone strips the new song from the program

4. The new song is put up on the internet for download despite not having been released.

The same can go with music and movies. Even books and comics can be obtained freely through the internet.

So maybe the worst thing about the internet is debatable. It could be Pirating, which is more likely, but I prefer freedom because the reinforcements against Pirating and Torrenting don’t seem that strong to me. The internet allows for too much movement, and too much anonyminity; there are to many ways for users to find there way around any given hurdle. If you stop illegal downloading one way, someone somewhere will find another way.

And, in my opinon, there is no real way to take that freedom away. Freedom is the internet, and the internet is freedom. For all that bad there is just as much, if not more, good that comes from it.

Recently the governement tried to pass S.O.P.A and PiP which could effectively minimize the amount of freedom given to internet users but my personal opinion is that our society is far too dependable on the internet for that to happen.

I am a user of many social networking sites and there were requests everywhere asking for people to join together and sign petitions against S.O.P.A and PiP! I, for one, love the freedom that the internet supplies.

the though that, if i want to try something new, or learn something new, i can look up how to do it on the internet. i don’t have to waste my time or money going out to by a book, or have someone teach me. its all there, right in front of me, right on my screen and all i have to do is put in the right words to look for it.

Many of the things i’ve grown most interested have stemmed from the internet, and most of the information i gather, or my knowledge of the news comes from the internet.