Where do you stand for example on the issue of music file-sharing?

also on dowloading movies free of charge? Do you think these forms of intellectual property should be protected under copyright law? How do you define your own intellectual property, and what ways and under waht conditions are you willing to share it? Finally, come up with your own definition of academic integrity?

Academic integrity - not asking homework questions on a forum!

If someone files a copyright, they are staking a claim to their property. You shouldn't use it without their permission, which in most cases involves paying a fee. Why would someone produce something if they aren't going to receive some sort of credit.

I believe music should be shared without limits.

Music is something that has been shared amongst cultures globally for year without cost. It's only in very recent history that corporations have tried to make a quick buck out of selling music. And judging how they are dealing with the issue by handing out lawsuits left and right, I hope all the corporations that the RIAA represents file for bankruptcy.

Having said that I understand that artists need to make money too and I will occasioanlly buy music, but only if it is good. There is so much trash out there these days, and prices keep going up, it's just plain retarded.

My intellectual property includes short stories and books I've written but never published--I would be
DEVASTATED if someone published them in their name when I've worked SO hard on them. I think anything of your own creation is your property. The question is, how do you prove that it's yours?

So yes, I think that they should be covered under copyright.

Ideally, the IP content of such should be protected, so that the creators can obtain their price. As a practical matter, it isn't possible: any IP content which can be obtained in digital form can be copied in digital form without degradation. This will make it necessary to completely re-think how IP should be sold and distributed; the solution almost certainly involves selling the IP for a low enough price that it isn't worthwhile to copy it.

its a nonissue. The file sharing thing is being aggressively protected by the movie and music industry.

Well I think that when you download music and movies it's not really stealing. It's "file-sharing". It's just an invisible bunch of zeros and ones. It's not a material object like a chair or a TV. I think intellectual property should be protected but only when it's an object. For example it should be illegal to steal a CD or a book but not a song from the internet or a book that you can read using acrobat. File sharing is here to stay because humans love information and as long as their is demand for information people will not stop. It's kinda like illegal immigration. No matter how many laws are passed and no matter how many restrictions people will come as long as the United States is prosperous!