My blogging self needed a boost this morning. The metaphors were simply not forthcoming. I knew I wanted to write about the amazingness that is Creative Commons licensing and how appreciative I am of its existence, but creativity was just not happening. So, I visited Flickr.com and searched the term "Creativity", then limited my search to Creative Commons licensed images. This beauty to the left showed its, er, faces in just a few finger-scrolling seconds. Deep in the image's mouths, I found my metaphor. I found the seed for this post. The Internet was born a place of sharing ideas and content (Richardson, W., 2010). As it has grown into a vast digital universe, copyright laws have required extensive updating. As discussed in this video, however, those updates have failed to address the blatant (intentional?) problems for the general public who reside in this digital universe of copyrighted materials: Who, besides lawyers, can read legalese? Who would want to? Copyright laws are written in dense language that detail stringent, often unmanageable requirements. Ain't nobody got time for that. |
So, this image. It, ahem, spoke to me. From the Jef Safi's mind came this creation, and from it emerged my voice for this post. And that, my friends, is the point of Creative Commons: Creative Commons licensing "develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation." Because Mr. Safi chose to allow legal use of his incredible work of art, he unwittingly brought my creativity as a writer out of its dark hidey-hole today.
What This Means for Student Work
Students often pay zero attention to copyright requirements, and making them understand how it is possible that some distant content creator owns the images and text they can easily copy and paste is no easy task. However, directing students to look specifically for Creative Commons licensed materials and presenting them with websites that make that option simple helps them to be digitally responsible without us having to spend too much time harping on it.
Still, the double citation requirement is a pain, and members of an anticopyright movement have proposed compelling arguments against the need to even reserve "some rights". According to Anna Nimus (2006), copyrighting at all is a form of fraud, as no one creates anything wholly new; all creation, she claims, is a product of a common culture and any treatment of content as intellectual property "threaten[s] free speech, democracy, competition, innovation, education, the progress of science, and other things that are critically important to our (?) social, cultural, and economic well-being."
Reference
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms - 3rd ed. California: Corwin.
What This Means for Student Work
Students often pay zero attention to copyright requirements, and making them understand how it is possible that some distant content creator owns the images and text they can easily copy and paste is no easy task. However, directing students to look specifically for Creative Commons licensed materials and presenting them with websites that make that option simple helps them to be digitally responsible without us having to spend too much time harping on it.
Still, the double citation requirement is a pain, and members of an anticopyright movement have proposed compelling arguments against the need to even reserve "some rights". According to Anna Nimus (2006), copyrighting at all is a form of fraud, as no one creates anything wholly new; all creation, she claims, is a product of a common culture and any treatment of content as intellectual property "threaten[s] free speech, democracy, competition, innovation, education, the progress of science, and other things that are critically important to our (?) social, cultural, and economic well-being."
Reference
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms - 3rd ed. California: Corwin.