#3 Is that yours?

Blog #3

Copyright is challenging with technology today. Why?

What makes it difficult to follow copyright laws?

• There is often no trace back to the real author, which makes getting permission difficult. Once one link in the chain is broken, getting back to the original takes some searching.
• Creative commons is great, but for students it becomes another format they have to learn. The full attribution is something I myself have never done simply because I didn’t do my research yet – if you’re ready to do yours, see HERE.

What is Creative Commons anyways?

As I understand from their explanation HERE under General License Information, Creative Commons simply allows those with work that would normally exist under copyright laws to give different permissions for the usage of their work. And they warn readers that there isn’t just one:

“it is important to identify which of the six licenses you are applying to your material, which of the six licenses has been applied to material that you intend to use, and in both cases the specific version.”

What about public domain?

In cases where items are old enough, then it becomes part of the public domain. Yet, this is not always cut and dried, as some places might still consider that there is a piece of work that should receive attribution. Do you want to do your research? HERE

Overall, the main challenge is to stop being lazy and stop giving excuses. We generally know what the right thing to do is, but we choose not to do it. In the fast-paced world of today, it is easy to excuse to ourselves that everything is open for our use, right here, right now.

Well, how to solve it?

A solution for helping myself as the teacher, and my students, become more aware would be to provide them an opportunity to contribute to the Creative Commons to get to know the intricacies of copyright laws. They could do this easily due to the amount of photo they take with their smartphones. Presentations, art work, songs they write and record, podcasts, or anything they create for class could become Creative Commons.

But part of me is of the idea to follow along with making everything free and open. If it is something valuable and beneficial, then why claim it as my own. Surely, I can’t be the first one to have done something like this.

Source: Doug Belshaw