Friday, October 16, 2009
Thing #10 Anything But Common
Wow! I am amazed and comforted that there are brilliant and creative people out in the world thinking about things like Creative Commons. I formerly believed that I, and all other teachers and students, would just have to take our chances and hope that what we used and sampled and modified would never be challenged based on copyright law. I have noticed CC on websites, but I think I just assumed it meant the same as C; I never even questioned it before now. I use audio and video clips from the web in my teaching, and now I can be relieved of culpability, real or imagined, by noticing the copyright status of the content I am interested in. I have also shared content on the web, again, with no thought of fair use. The web has the feel of a car; we are willing to curse at strangers and steal their lanes because we are insulated by the glass, plastic, and metal of our moving vehicle, and the insulation and anonymity of the screen/screen name feels similar. I think this is the potential danger of CC. Restricted use is still restricted, and the explicit permission granted by the CC is easily aberrated to include all uses. I definitely think the positive possibilities of CC outweigh the possible negative abuses.
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I never really considered the negative possibilities of CC. But you are right. Since there are so many crazies in the world, real dangers do exist. One of these "nutters," as Salinger would say, can easily take something beautiful and use it for something vulgar. I guess it's a risk that we'll have to take. I'd hate to let the "nutters" keep the artists from free expression and from finding success on their own terms, some of the opportunities that CC provides.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me realize we really need to be teaching students about the ethics of using the internet along with all the fun stuff.
ReplyDeleteI would have to add that the idea of teaching ethics is something we probably are teaching as many of our kids have a whole different view of what is "right" in the eyes of society and what is "wrong".
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