Privacy, Copyright, and Other Issues

William Gibson created the term cyberspace in his novel “Neuromancer”, which he describes as the worlds compilation of data all available in a sensually vivid display. It is amazing that nearly thirty-five million people make up the population of cyberspace. With this vast of an amount of individuals it is bound to exponentially expand. Many in this industry call cyberspace an information highway. The only difference is that they are more concerned with regulating the highway and making it more efficient than the actual packages that our on the “highway”. Cyberspace also includes instances called wormholes. These wormholes consist of a relationship between the individual who created it and those who explore it, which enables them to learn from one another. There are many difficulties when it comes to cyberspace. One is the issue of true ownership. This ownership is based on laws like copyright and what is clarified as copyright infringement in the digital world. It is so easy to make clear copies of work and share them with friends and family. The big question is where do they draw the line. Once the information that you have created has entered the information highway there is very little that can be done to enforce copyright infringement and it is also very difficult to determine whether the document that is being copied is an original or a copy to trace it back to it’s true owner. People have become so engrossed with cinema that novelist have begun to graphically detail novels as if it were a movie. This makes it very difficult or skewed for an individual to alternate from fiction to non-fiction and from non-fiction to fiction. Cyberspace and all of its’ attachments have helped our society advance in many ways and will continue to do so as it grows and problems like regulating the information highway are resolved.