CHAPTER 13 Computers in Society: Today
Public Access to Court Records Privacy groups are beginning to question the wisdom of the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system. The PACER system is a national database that enables anyone with Internet access to obtain access to court records that may include personal information. Citizens and privacy groups are concerned about the potential for identity theft; that is, the personal information obtained via these records may enable individuals to take on another person's identity for the purpose of fraud. Privacy groups are asking that the court system find a way to filter out personal information in court records. A nominal fee is charged to users who wish to access information on the PACER system.
Pirating Movies The intellectual property rights issues have been front-page news recently with record companies suing Napster to stop promoting the sharing of copyright MP3 songs via peer-to-peer networks. The sharing of songs has been attractive to those with only dial-up Internet access since. The sharing of huge feature length movie files, however, is impractical on dial-up links. However, with the rapid expansion of broadband access has come the pirating of movies. Industry analysts are estimating that up to 400,000 first-run movies are illegally downloaded each day. Films on DVD-ROM are copied and posted to the Net. Digital camcorders are taken to movie theaters where they are used to illegally capture films for Net distribution. The abuse of intellectual property rights in the film industry is nowhere near that of the recording industry, however, we can look for Naptser-level litigation and ongoing news coverage as movie moguls move aggressively to protect their property rights.