Viewpoint identification and analysis

[Tasha68]

Hello,

1. In the explanation and analysis of the example paragraph 1, Lines 11-15, it is said that the viewpoint of the “file sharers” is somewhat contrary to the previous viewpoint I.e., the viewpoint of the Intellectual Property owners; I’m having difficulty understanding how the viewpoint of the file sharers is somewhat contrary to that of the intellectual property owners.

I also ended up categorizing the viewpoint of intellectual property owners as “Musicians”, because of “such as music” I saw in the paragraph, would that be okay or did I make a mistake, please do let me know how and how can I avoid making it again.

2. How would one go about differentiating the viewpoints of the Commentator and the Author I seem to be getting them confused, could you also please let me know things to look for.

For context, this is regarding the example paragraph 2 about the work of Toni Morrison.

Thank you so much!

[Adam Tyson]

First, let's be clear about what a viewpoint is, Tasha68. A viewpoint is like an opinion, or a belief/ It's what someone thinks, feels, or believes. You could also say a viewpoint is a position taken by someone, like the conclusion of their argument.

In that first paragraph, we have two groups of people: those who share files, and those who own intellectual property (and "music" is just given as a type of intellectual property they might own; music can be owned by musicians, but also by producers, or record companies, or writers, or anyone who buys the rights to that music.). How do the file sharers feel, and what do they believe? They believe that the widespread use of file sharing networks makes copyright protection impossible. What do the owners of that intellectual property believe? That enforcement of copyrights is necessary (and thus, they have to believe enforcement is possible). So you can see that the two viewpoints are in opposition to each other - one group thinks enforcing copyrights is impossible while the other thinks it is both possible and necessary.

For that other paragraph, when we say "the author" we mean the person who wrote the passage that you are reading. What does that person think, feel, or believe? When the author says "some have called..." they are definitely not referring to themselves, so that must be someone else's viewpoint. If the author was sharing their own viewpoint they would have instead said something like "Toni Morrison is a feminist," rather than referring to others holding that opinion. Sometimes the author is expressing what they think or feel, and sometimes they are telling you what other people think or feel, and you have to pay careful attention to see whose viewpoint is being expressed.