Week 3 Post (IST 195)

                As mentioned in the previous week’s post, sitesandsounds.com will provide its users with the opportunity to copyright their original songs and compositions if they so choose. Sitesandsounds.com will strongly urge their users to copyright their music so that it cannot be copied, stolen, or used by anyone else.

                Although stealing another person’s original music does not fall directly under the issue of identity theft, they can both be associated with one another. If a person were to steal music and lyrics that you yourself wrote and then profited from it, they are in a sense committing identity theft.  Even though identity theft deals with issues such as stolen credit card and social security numbers, stealing another person’s creation (be it a story, painting, , song, etc.) is equally as bad and dangerous. A person’s career may depend on their personal creations, and if someone steals that from them, it could potentially cause harm to or destroy their career.

                Lastly, 18-29 year olds account for almost 30% of all identity theft complaints, and that is the prime age for budding new artists. To ensure that their identity is protected, sitesandsound.com will continuously reiterate the importance of copyrighting any music that is uploaded to a person’s profile on the site. Better be safe than sorry!

Week 2 Blog Post (IST 195)

            When creating a social networking site like sitesandsounds.com, it is important to consider the different aspects of privacy. Much like Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets, sitesandsounds.com will allow people to share personal information about themselves, their music interests, their original songs, and the locations of their future gigs. In order to prevent this personal information from being available to everyone and from getting into the wrong hands, sitesandsounds.com will have comprehensive privacy settings, which will allow users to customize their privacy to their own liking.

            Those who join sitesandsounds.com will have the ability to set up their profile to their liking, much like a blog – they can choose their own fonts, backgrounds, colors, layout, etc., but most importantly, they will have the option of choosing who gets to view their profile and what each person specifically gets to see on and related to their profile. People will be able to request to view other’s profiles if they are a friend, family member, or simply just someone interested in that person’s music. That person then gets to accept or deny the person upon their choosing. On the other hand, sitesandsounds.com will have general groups pertaining to certain music genres, events, industries, or artists that any member can join in order to find people with common interests or even possible job opportunities.

            A significant component of this website will be the ability to copyright original songs and music. Members of sitesandsounds.com can pay an inexpensive annual fee to the website, which will allow them to officially copyright their own music so that they do not have to deal with others stealing their ideas, melodies, lyrics, and overall compositions. Being a social networking site geared towards singer-songwriters, it is crucial that sitesandsounds.com gives its members and users the ability to copyright their own music. 

Entrepreneurship Project (IST 195)

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be using this blog to discuss a hypothetical new project I wish to implement. This project involves the creation of a social networking service and website geared specifically towards singer-songwriters.

            This website, which I plan to call sitesandsounds.com, will function much like other social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter; its main difference being that it will be used exclusively by musicians who write and compose their own lyrics and music and wish to share them with others. Most importantly, by using this website, musicians will have a greater chance at being discovered by the music industry who will have the opportunity to monitor the website.

            On sitesandsounds.com, people will be able to add and accept friends and have a profile with their name, photo, and bio like every other social networking service, but all other facets of the website will be music related.  People will have the ability to upload audio files or videos of their songs and music, make online recordings, post the location of future gigs, join specific music genre groups according to their interest, and much more. Sitesandsounds.com will also be similar to websites like Linkedin because people will have the opportunity to connect with people in the music industry and perhaps even find jobs.